


Tough Developments

by Susamo



Series: The Adventures of the young Gos athor Atlan da Gonozal [8]
Category: Perry Rhodan - Various Authors
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/M, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:07:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25272916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Susamo/pseuds/Susamo
Summary: Upon the planet called Tela-vhelor, young Atlan da Gonozal in his role as a mehandor orphan named Cunor is confronted with harsh reality, while upon Arkon matters are developing not in a pleasurable way.
Series: The Adventures of the young Gos athor Atlan da Gonozal [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753825
Comments: 4
Kudos: 1





	Tough Developments

**Author's Note:**

> All Arkonides have red eyes and white hair, and look like humans.  
> With excitement and agitation, an Arkonath person's eyes will easily water.
> 
> Upon Arkonath measurement of time, see the notes of my previous works. A prago is a day, a tonta is an hour, a minute a khela, and a second a sarton, a moment a mithron. A year is a Tai-Votan, a Votan is a month, a berlon is a week.
> 
> Tai Moas Cunor da Gonozal homenn-Imperator (literally "Great Number One") Cunor of Gonozal the seventh  
> Payna zayna-lit. "crooked stuff", slang meaning good work, awesome stuff  
> Pakka-tho-literally a man at one's side, a protector, a bodyguard, a helper (especially in the Ran’zarak, the underworld of  
> criminals).
> 
> arbtan-(simple) soldier. An arbtan's two-step is a kind of dance comparable to a Paso Doble, though it is danced more in  
> the form of a military march.
> 
> orbton-(military) officer
> 
> To Stand with Cup Ready-to be ready to pour or spill the cup of welcome onto the ground instead of offering it in welcome  
> and friendship. That means that the Khasurn Master doing so, standing with Cup Ready, is about to Curse With Cup  
> Spilled, is about to declare House Feud to whomever it concerns with his Family having been hurt or having been  
> offered deadly and insufferable insult.
> 
> For those who are interested in the Arkonath language, I'll give another entry of the dictionary about the many expressions  
> concerning "khema", "Cup".
> 
> khema-cup. Khemen paynathe-lit. to offer the cup, to welcome s.o. Khemen praske-lit.to spill, pour the cup,= to  
> reject s.o., to refuse the welcome to s.o. . Khema Famathre-Famathra’s Cup. (Goddess of Death and Destruction, of  
> the merciless Cycle of Life, but also of Rebirth and Reawakening, Merciless and bloody war, of revenge, but also  
> forgiveness. In her name, a Wake is held. She guards the souls of the dead until they are reborn again. (“She who has  
> power over Life”). Sayings: “to drink from  
> Famathra’s Cup” (khemen Famathre kyage) or “to taste Famathra’s Cup” (khemen Famathre orasane) means  
> one feels remorse, feels bitter regret, when the consequences of one’s deeds come home. “To offer  
> Famathra’s cup” (khemen Famathre paynathe) means to offer forgiveness, to forgive. “To spend Famathra’s  
> Cup” (kemen Famathre vahte) is to vow revenge. To fill Famathra’s Cup-Khemen Famathre urthe-to be in  
> mourning, to mourn. Khemenan a shefal-“with cup in hand”, = concerning a ritual or a feast.  
> Shaynosmare khemenan a shefal- name with honour, with cup in hand-acclaim at a feast or at a ritual.  
> To Curse with Cup Spilled-khemenan praskethon rhifetrone-to declare House Feud against an individual or a  
> whole Khasurn. To drink a bitter cup-to accept hard conditions,to be forced to accept hard conditions.  
> (Khemen khatten kyage).  
> To pour a bitter cup-to force, to compel someone (Khemen khatten praske).  
> betray-lit. hand on a poisoned cup (giving betraying information)-laspeero khemen kharaltronen. Offer a  
> poisoned cup-when one is betraying someone to his face, is luring him into a trap-paynathe khemen  
> kharaltronen. To spill/pour a poisoned cup-to betray someone as such-prasko khemen kharaltronen. Betrayal-a  
> poisoned Cup, khema kharaltrona, or a Cup with Poison Mixed in-khema kharale sal-memikkathone. In short  
> one also speak of poison as such, or “poison in a cup”, kharala a khema.  
> Logénn-to the end, totally, fully. most often with verbs, to do something “to the end”, accomplish doing  
> something. Kyage logénn-lit. “to drink to the end”, to drink up, to drink down including the dregs. Kyage  
> logénn khemen memikkathonule-to drink up the cup one has mixed oneself-to stand up to the consequences  
> of one’s own deeds, to face the music one has ordered oneself, to lie in the bed one has made oneself.  
> related words:khama-cave, hole; fakhama-lit. a woman’s cave, vagina. yakhama-waterhole, well, fountain.  
> Khamton-hollowed out, caved out, washed out.
> 
> The Shemantal da Karsha Sarpa, Serpent's Reach, and its inhabitants the insectoid majat, are the creation of C.J.Cherryh. All rights about that subject belong to her. 
> 
> Kath zarakh’, a sword-shade, a gang-fighter.
> 
> tappol-backside, ass.

Tough Developments

Cunor’s eyes lighted up, and he gave one of these elegant bows, right at the young woman, who had asked him to teach the gang about Dagor.

“With joy, I shall do that, Karena, as I have promised. Ah-where? I doubt you have a room big enough here, which is empty and can be used for training?”

Rhonn gave a little gesture and rose.  
“No, but there’s our courtyard. The house is small, but it is ours, and Morenth lets us live here as long as we pay him with whatever he asks-the rent doesn’t have to be paid in chronners, but often enough, he asks-ah-small services from us.”The leader of the wenadoran cleared his throat.  
“So no-one can see what we are doing here in the courtyard, but he sends a spybot, and for that eventuality Aday has installed cover-ware. “

“Spying has happened?” Atlan raised his brows and crossed his arms.

Rhonn shrugged and opened his hands. “Yes, Tscheketh tried it a few times. But the reflector field, showing but an empty courtyard, he cannot pierce, and neither could he detect it with the defensive ‘ruptor-field installed additionally. That’s-“

“I know how to calibrate a field which is disrupting something’s passive or active sending and reflects it or nullifies it. For that, you need a projector inside, or two, which is better.”

“We have three.” Aday beamed at his new colleague in the lore of ‘tronics. “I can let the fields change that way as well, and there’s a simple but quite effective formula for automatic recalibrating.”

Cunor cocked his head a little and grinned sharply at the wenadoran’s ‘tronic whizz’boy.

“Sakhay’s equation, isn’t it? If I were you I’d make it less easy to second-guess with making the patterns interlock reciprocally. You know the ‘coder-mode lock-in systems use?”

Aday grinned from ear to ear. “As the program can be pirated off the drive-engine-throttle –modes of a Leka disc, for example, yes. That’s what you mean?”

“Oh, ae yaeh! That’s where you skimmed it off? Payna zayna, I have to give back the compliment! I’d have trouble to second-guess this if I knew and could tell the courtyard was full of people! Oh, well done!”

The merchanter youth’s eyes were shining in truth, and he gave Aday a small bow and a salute to the breast which made the young programmer’s cheeks colour with pleasure.  
Rhonn, grinning as well, cleared his throat. “We always knew Aday is good. But it seems you really know how good-we didn’t know enough of the details, looks like, to properly compliment him. Well, merchanter mate, that good enough for you?”

“Yes.” Cunor snapped his fingers. “Excellent!”

Walking down the hallway the older youth proudly explained:” We’ve got training equipment there as well. Simple sandbags and a boxing dummy which can measure the strength and pressure and the speed applied to a hit. We have vibro-knifes one can calibrate so that their edges are dulled for training and a firing range which counts your scored hits and offers different scenarios. Morenth helped us with paying for that, of course, as well as for a robot one can train the picking of a pocket with. But it pays off, you see, Cunor. We are keeping up our strength that way and stay up to par with a gang like Tscheketh’s, which is adults and youths older than me or Tirako.  
So tell me which weapon and which device we need first, and you’ll get it!”

Atlan grinned. “First things first, perkharno mate”, he replied gently.

”What we’ll need now is mats to catch a fall. That’s the first thing to learn with any kind of fighting-how to take a fall without any hurt and get up in a hurry.”

The gang-leader smiled grimly and stood hands on his hips. “And don’t I know that too well, day-mirkh’! Whom do you think to teach-a sila-roth?” 

The young Gos-athor grinned back evilly. These terms he actually understood, though neither were part of the vocabulary of Court-Arkona. A day-mirkh’ was simply a ship-dweller, as opposed, probably, to the dirt-grubber he had called Rhonn. By the older youth’s tone, a day-mirkh’ was nothing to admire, and he perhaps should be glad not to be called something ruder which would have struck nearer to home, literally, with a young mehandor who had lost his family and all the home he had ever known. Turacel reports held such newly arrived swear-words like ekhra-zhu for the homeless rabble or refugees from Maahkath attacks who became cumbersome to the planets they had escaped to. A sila-roth, on the other hand, described a crying new-born. Should he apologize now, or take the matter further with teasing, giving back as he got? The latter, the young prince decided. Giving way too easily seemed not to be the best strategy with the hard-nosed gang-leader, and neither was such behaviour consistent with the character of Cunor Lant’cer.

“Aeh Sisisil,” he retorted, opening his arms invitingly but bowing slightly, his grin becoming wide, offering truce at least. At that, the tall youth grinned. 

“Time to tickle me to make me laugh is somewhat late, merchanter mate,” he replied, though in a somewhat mollified tone. “Though I don’t know anything about Dagor all right. So let’s get started. Mats it is, as much I get well enough. When you threw me yesterday, I noticed that this is no gentle game.”

“As you most likely have no use for soft games anyway,” Atlan said, becoming thoughtful and giving the gang-leader an appraising stare. 

Rhonn gave back a wry smile and had the boys bring the mats, which were laid out according to the young mehan’s directions.

“I understand that what you need are quick results and no show-off, but true hits that count and can save lives”, Cunor said. “You’ll get that, as soon as possible. But before you can build up something you need to set the groundwork, will you or nil you. And with Dagor, that’s more important than anywhere else. The point is, if you are down to the strength of your own muscles, your own pure muscle power, and nothing else, you’ll always lose to anyone bigger or stronger. You can compensate with speed, but there as well you need to be strong on technique and balance, or you can’t whip up any speed at all. And for balance you have to know your moves to the nines.”

Atlan demonstrated his meaning with a few stances and moves.  
“That looks easy and like kid’s stuff, I know. But let you follow me and copy the moves, and you will see what I mean.”

The young members of the wenadoran who had each found a place to move in followed that instruction with skeptical looks exchanged, at least among the older boys who already knew how to fight and had a lot of experience. But the outcome of the little exercise surprised them.  
Tirako and Irhyen went down almost immediately, while the others barely managed to complete the move, having to stop at the turn that had looked so easy and simple when Cunor had shown it. Only Selaron and Rhonn managed to go through with the turn, but they had to do it by sheer force and pure muscle power, as the mehan’ chap had said, and puffed with exertion after, while the merchanter stood calm and unperturbed.

“Don’t see how you do that, merchanter mate, seeing as you are smaller and thinner than me”, Enteko growled.

Atlan grinned outright.  
“I don’t have to use much muscle power when I can do it by balance”, he responded, and demonstrated his steps and turns once more, aware how closely he was watched. The older boys were putting their sense of honour into this now, no bad kind of motivation, actually. Street-gang honour, this was.

“And, of course, by the added power correct breathing gives to me, which is where Dagor is different from most of what you will have heard of or practiced. That way, I can pull off much more than what my own mere muscle power would allow me to do.”

He repeated his move and breathed in and out loudly, in cadence to his motions.  
“This is the flow of energy that enables me to carry the Dagor Cai, the exercise, through without much effort,” he explained, coming to rest once more.

“Balance and breathing, and the movement patterns as such, are what you must learn, and breathing and keeping basic balance is your groundwork. A hit or grip itself comes naturally then, and will not ask for much effort any longer. When you have to put in strength and effort and are down to your muscle power-this is when you have lost the way and are out of balance. So try to keep off putting in your strength, and the matter will work.”

Rhonn frowned. “That’s about the opposite of what I’ve known and learned and practiced so far, in fighting street-style”, he said. “I won’t contradict you outright, Cunor, but you know-I simply can’t believe this. Strength is what matters, any simplest logic tells one that.”

“I understand.” The young mehandor seemed unperturbed and even smiled slightly. “This is why I keep repeating that principle. You have that dummy that can read the strength of an impact, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” Rhonn gave a signal to Aday, and the tronic whizz’ kid pulled it out of its concealing niche.

“Here’s our pakka-tho.” There was unmistakable pride in the gang-leader’s voice, and with reason. The dummy was fully functional and seemed to have programmed in the latest known in the market.

“Right. Then, hit it please, Rhonn, and as forcefully and strongly as you can.”

The older youth grinned and swung his arm. “You’ll see, merchanter mate, what I can bring to bear. Watch.”

With a short yell, the young gang man started an in-run and swung his arm, turning at the same time to enhance the power of his blow, and struck the chin of the dummy with his fist. The read-out was truly impressive.

“Opponent unconscious,” the machine announced.

“That’s what we call a sleeping shot,” Rhonn commented, satisfied, and rubbed his fingers. “Anyone receiving such a blow would lie there and sleep for tontas.”

“Provided the one can’t evade in time. But I bet that this Tscheketh and his men aren’t that swift.”Cunor grinned impishly and was answered by like smiles.

“Now it’s your turn, mehan’ mate. Prove what you can do.” The gang-leader’s grin was smug.

The young mehandor gave a slight bow and walked up to the dummy all calmly and almost carelessly, as one would towards a man one did not expect to make trouble at all. Only when he was a meter away he suddenly turned and moved incredibly swiftly, hitting the dummy at the throat and in the middle of the chest. The thing even rocked slightly, giving way according to inbuilt programming, while Cunor had ducked and taken a roll to come up once more, facing the dummy again, and hit it a second time from the other side in a time not much longer than Rhonn’s attack had taken.

“Four hits, each of them lethal,” the machine announced in its deadpan metallic voice. 

Rhonn stared, and then in a strangled voice said:” Strength of impact, compared to my hit!”

“Four times point eight, three times point seven, four times point zero, three times point nine.”

“At the throat and at the right point of attack a hit of even less strength than yours would have been lethal, of course”, the mehan youth explained gently, walking up to the gang-leader once more. 

“Aimed at less-lethal points like arms and legs, I would have broken those like sticks-always provided my opponent doesn’t know how to block me or how to evade. I’ve just demonstrated, also, what kind of power one can employ, not what one needs to use to achieve the end one goes for. With a normal Arkonath person I do not have to hit as strongly to have that one out of the fight, not even to kill. I’d do that, actually, where I need pretty little force applied, that is, at places where it counts and the one I attack cannot easily evade or counterattack, like at the neck or the throat or like I showed it now, at the heart. For I would not kill but when and where it is absolutely necessary, and in such a case I cannot afford to offer my opponent any chance at all to retaliate or to evade, anyway.”

The members of the wenadoran were deeply impressed, Atlan saw. The gang-leader swallowed.

“You went at me somewhat like that, Cunor”, he said. “But your grip and hit did no more than disable my arm for half a tonta!”

The young mehandor snapped his fingers, agreeing.“Yes. When I do not go for true harm or in for a kill I pull my hits, of course.”

“Gods.” Rhonn shook his head and coughed, and then his light-red eyes began to shine. “That’s really something, this Dagor. Merchanter mate, with this to our hands that damn Tscheketh and his men are done for!”

The young prince grimaced. “Given that one has no knowledge of Dagor either”, he retorted. “Mind you, I am but a hertaso of the fifth grade and no more. There are twelve grades to attain before you can become a Laktrote!”

“And since when have you been learning and practicing, Cunor?” Karena asked, sending her new friend a truly admiring glance, which made the young mehandor actually blush a little.

“Regularly, I began at about three years of age. But my brother started training me when I had learned to talk first and could understand what he told me, as early as at the time I began to properly walk. Those were breathing exercises and games which gradually became true exercises at moving. But shipside you spend as much time as you can in the gym anyway. If you don’t, you’ll end up with severe atrophy of your muscles sooner or later. We had to move in lighter gravities or even in zero-gee quite often and for longer periods of time when we were loading or delivering goods, and in conditions like these, your muscles have to do too little to keep up their normal pull. The same goes for your whole organism. Training Dagor was but a necessary drill.”

Rhonn inclined his head, grinning. “So your time spent shipside has been good for something even in the eyes of perkharnoi, of groundhoggers like us, Cunor. Onward, merchanter mate. Show us again.”

“Right.”

Atlan took up the basic stance and explained it. “Stand feet apart, easy and relaxed, about as far as your torso, like this. Let your arms hang down, relaxed-swing your arms a little like pendulums, imagining that you hold something heavy. Like this, yes. Now let them swing out slowly, let them come to rest. Head up, chin straight-Tirako, your chin’s up too far, Irjona, yours must come up a little more-yes, that’s right-the top of your head is straight above your spine.  
Aday, you’re slouching a little. Stand up straight. Yes. Good, everyone. Now imagine a line of light coming up from the ground right between your feet, beneath the centre of your body, and going up through your body along the spine till it comes out of your head at the top, in the centre. See that, inside your mind? Feel it?”

It took a little time for everyone to acknowledge. Then the young prince went on.  
“Now, that line of light is what is called the mehin’zhy, the line of power which holds the seven Mirkani thoré, the places of power. These spots are where your energies are centered, and where your breathing will concentrate your energy for several different purposes. For today, we will but concentrate upon the line of power itself, and feel the balance we are in, the perfect balance around that central anchor. Swing your arms again, lightly, and feel how you stay in balance, keeping to this stance, keeping the line and your posture straight. Do not move your feet, but give a little at the knees, a bit more, then a little less, a bit more-yes. Exactly. Keep to that movement, and always concentrate upon that line of light and keep it straight with keeping your body in balance. Good. Very good.”

It was obvious that the members of this gang had learned about balance and fighting before, even the youngest of them, or they could not have kept in such good balance now. But for being a good thief and acquiring that light-fingered touch which even the youngest girl, Ihmera, already possessed, one had to learn how to move and how to quickly act and react, and for that one had at least basically had to have trained to keep in balance.

“Now start breathing more deeply. In-out, in time with the swing of your arms and the moves of your knees. In. Out. In. Out. Yes, very good. Keep doing this for a while now. In. Out. With breathing in you straighten. With breathing out you give a little. Yes. In. Out. Close your eyes. Feel your body. Feel its moves. In. Out. Feel your breath. In. Give and breathe. Out.”

They were slipping into a slight meditative state, just as he had planned it, Atlan thought with satisfaction. This went better than expected. He would be able to teach them better than but a few moves that would enable them to defend themselves a little better. They would need more than that as well. Given the environment this wenadoran had to survive in, with this Tscheketh and his gang as a rival and a constant danger, learning Dagor was no question of a nice advantage for Rhonn and his friends-it might be a life-saving necessity. What he was teaching his wenadoran-mates might be vital for their survival one prago or another; so he would put in some well-concealed Golamo tricks, the young prince decided. Though, he assumed, street-fighting and surviving there had put Rhonn and the others through hard schooling too and made them even better trained than him, the mehandor youth, who actually had had little fighting to do as yet, being kept safe shipside but for the occasions when he had had to go out and get data for his father. But there and then it had been the point to do so undetected, and he had managed to stay unnoticed on his missions. So far all his combat experience was but theoretical, and he had not had to kill yet, though he had trained for such a case. The dead on board the Lirela had been the first corpses he had seen, apart from the dead animals his mother had had him examine. The members of his family, his beloved ones, his mother, his brother, his uncle-they had been the first people he had seen die.

Ever the shadow of the TONDON loomed over his shoulder, and ever the echo of Lesena’s scream sounded in his ear, if he permitted it, the young Crystal Prince realized with a shiver, feeling Kelta’s blood sticking to his fingers. But he had to concentrate upon the view-point of Cunor Lant’cer. If he could not put away these memories entirely, then he had to remember them as they had been in truth. This was his truth, the truth of Cunor Lant’cer, of Lirela out of Firing system. He had seen the intruders strangle his uncle Deni, and had seen them kill his mother Lesanna, and had fallen over his brother Kel’s body. The while Aloroy, his father, had had to watch all of that, caught in a tanglefield on the bridge…  
Taking a somewhat shaky breath the young prince forced himself to concentrate upon his here and now, and commanded on in a hopefully calm voice. Obediently the members of his wenadoran were breathing in and out, feeling their balance and their mehin zhy. All was well, here and now.

“Leads, we need leads we can follow, Gods gracious and not so gracious at all!” Mekron kel’Dermitron growled impatiently as he scanned another report which, in essence, came to naught but hot air evaporating. The tronic’ whizz-mekhan could pinpoint the contact in question, where the access to the servitor Khesal’s file could be nailed down, to a reader at the Thek-Laktran. Period, so far. Khesal, who had been Kralas Sen and had died accordingly, lying in a veritable pool of blood, was the only strong lead they had because only three people at the time of his death had known who, and what, he was in truth: Crest tec’Gonozal the Tai Mascant, who had employed him, Remarol the Guurth da Afkunis, chief of the Luykan Pack-sorry, the Kralas Sen- who had deployed him, and the Tai Moas Gonozal homenn himself.

So whoever had seen fit to have the undercover Guardsman of the Reds die like that had known too, and that could only have happened by an unauthorized reading of that top-secret file. And now they knew that that access actually had happened, from the records the file itself held and that that file had been accessed from somewhere at the Thek Laktran, the Hill of the Wise. Ae yaeh. That had been the only fact that had been a given from the start. Where else? Few accesses, of course, could be used at all by whoever that mad traitor was since only a very few persons had the authorization and the clearance to look up such information. Outside of the Luykan Lair, only three people should have been able to tap into that file: The Tai Moas, the Tai Mascant, and the Ka’Gortis, the minister of War, Amonar kel Verathon.

Those three accesses were the ones to be meticulously analyzed. Yet, as it had turned out, none of the three admitted, and none of the three within the Luykan Lair who could read the file as well, had done so within the critical time, the while an echo of access was barely recognizable. But that echo, a fragmented data set just discernible was truly echoing to and fro in mirror mode between the accesses-four in total-leading the tronic’ specialists a merry arbtan’s two-step-dance. Someone else from the offices in question must have made use of the access and must have faked the clearance. How that was possible at all, and how well such a person must know the whole system, still was something of a mystery.

“Not mysterious at all, dear Chief of all the Celistas”, Mekron’s logic sector threw in sarcastically. “That one must be ranked very highly at the Thek Laktran, at least on the level of the Tai Than. But personally I rather guess at a person on the level of the Berlen Than. No-one lower-ranking could have known how to fake the clearance, since that one must know how such clearances work, by having one him-or herself. Most likely the one went in on his own clearance first, got denied, and then, somehow, got the help he or she needed to get in further. Actually the assassin must have had help from one of the offices to get all that done. Mark you-included the obviously most professionally executed mop-up after that leaves us at a dearth of traces!”

Imeela so Khatin had proposed a tiresome but perhaps eventually successful procedure to at least find the access in question. By elimination of one tiny energetic trace and readout after the other she might, so-to-say, swing herself in to the access most likely used. They could go on searching from there, then. There was a hitch, of course: the identifying process by elimination would take about four pragos, at the least. But it was the best solution the tronic specialist could come up with under the circumstances.

“It’s like having to eradicate background noise to let a very soft and weak signal come through at long last, where you also have to find the direction that signal comes from first”, Escantha so Khatin had explained, and as such, they had had to accept the matter. There was no better alternative, Khest’rell Ereinnyann.  
So the lead that was most promising was stuck in the sand, literally. Within that dune a Yilld was lurking, ready to spring, which already had attacked and dragged its prey to its lair. It was astounding how well the old analogies from drama fit and could be applied, in a situation like this. Ivsera already had ironically predicted a flood of highly artistic on the one hand and more trashy art on the other, on the subject of the young Gos athor’s abduction and retrieval, after, and that Imperium-wide. The Tai Mascant had only smiled faintly and had avowed that he would even gladly listen to a backstreet rhymer or a blood-and tear-dripping musical drama if that brought his son home again-well, tear-washed and blood-dripping the scene upon the Tondon had been all right too, in reality…

“His Eminence’s office is cleared by the very special security procedures in effect there unceasingly”, Crest tec’ Gonozal, the Tai Mascant, stated in a tone of finality. Though the signal echoed from that office as well on its way all around, it simply and practically could not come from there.

“The same goes for access in the Luykan Lair. The three who have authority to access there are able to control each other and can vouch for each other and security measures over there are so paranoid that they virtually prevent any capture or hijack of the system over there. Physical access is made impossible but for the three who might read the file. No-one can come in there unannounced or unrecorded. “

On vid one saw how tired the father of the Gos athor looked, and how deeply he must feel hurt in his heart and soul. But Crest tec’ Gonozal would not let his emotions stand in his way. The Tai Mascant was known for the iron discipline he could muster if necessary, and necessary that was, at the moment.

“The office of our Ka’Gortis, however, and my office at the Thek-Laktran are another matter entirely. The while my main office is upon Gor Ranton at Fleet High, I maintain the office upon Gos Ranton as well, where many of my subordinates come and go. The inconvenient possibility exists that the contact in question actually has initially been accessed from Gor Ranton and been slipped over to Gos Ranton on my personal access codes or upon one of my staff working with me closely. We have held an internal inquisitive council and came up with exactly seventeen persons who meet the criteria in question. I am first on the list, of course, as Amonar kel Verathon our Ka’Gortis is upon his. Independently from me and my office he has done the same with his people. His list is even longer. Twenty-six, with him on top. “ 

Crest da Gonozal grimaced and sighed. His grim face relaxed for a moment, though, and showed the echo of a faint smile.  
“Tharakkan da Ragnaari, on the other hand, would be a prime suspect but has been cleared as much as that is possible by Golamo and Kralas Sen. He is sure that no-one could have accessed anything through him; still he has submitted to a second and even more invading and painstaking investigation to help eliminate any faintest shadow of suspicion and doubt. That includes fine-tuned interrogation under trank, emotio-reading by Mooffs, and other most thorough examinations, none of which are pleasant and some of which exceed feeling simply uncomfortable. But Tharakkan submitted willingly and even insisted to be investigated as closely as any method can. He is most eager to help His Eminence and me and has developed a very personal interest in giving whatever he can contribute to catching the evil-doer. I’m more grateful than I can say. He even gave me a perfect description of his personal relation to my son, which is closer than I had reckoned. The Khasurn da Ragnaari is most helpful in any possible way and has received the personal commendation and thanks of our Imperator. Makhal da Ragnaari sees himself and his house targeted as victims in this, since Atlan is of their blood no less and their highest-ranking scion, in fact. I cannot but agree. Makhal has even personally called me a tonta ago and has officially declared that he Stands With Cup Ready.”

Uh-oh. Mekron kel Dermitron swallowed. By this, the Ragnaari Khasurn master had announced that he stood ready to declare official House Feud upon whomever it concerned. That should curb any showy threats by others since they were running a true risk to receive a Curse With Cup Spilled. Against Ragnaari that was too great a thing to risk lightly. Not even Orcast would dare that since it was a given that Cunor da Gonozal in his role as the Gonozal Khasurn Laktrote would follow suit within the tonta. That da Gonozal was tec’ Gonozal at the moment, holding the Tecca and the office of the Tai Moas aggravated the matter considerably.

“Not even Zoltral will likely risk that even with provocation”, he answered. “Good, on the one hand. But on the other, if they do nevertheless, feeling offended too much, then-“ The Chief of the Secret Services swallowed again. Gods, swords were halfway out of their sheaths with this preliminary declaration. Already, and so swiftly. Only a few tontas ago the whole of the Tai Ark’Tussan had stood together literally, and sung its hymn together.  
Now within the shortest order it could become an internal war of factions at Court against each other.

Crest smiled twistedly. “Do not worry too much, Mekron. Our Ragnaari cousin will not do anything in hot blood.”

The Service Chief sat up even straighter.  
“It is my job and my duty to worry, zhdopanda”, he retorted stiffly. “And I do not worry about anything done in hot blood. I am afraid of things done in cold blood, now.”

“Ah.” Crest tec’ Gonozal went with his fingers through his hair, exasperated, and threw it back with a swift characteristic twist of his head. The young Gos athor had adopted the same mannerism lately.

“At least there is no-one else who can be suspected at the access of His Eminence, and we are down to two contacts, actually.” Mekron kel Dermiktron sighed and then suddenly frowned as he saw the Tai Mascant look down at his steepled and interlocked fingers.

“Mekhon Tai Mascant?” he asked carefully after a khela of silence. “Who-?”

Crest tec Gonozal looked up with a short bitter laugh. “Who, actually, if not the ubiquitous one! My brother has told me-“

He stopped. The Service Chief took a deep breath, comprehending. That the brother mentioned was not Upoc the composer was clear.

“That old Ramoros has, all in easy familiarity as his father-in-law, come to his office more than once lately, to demonstrate the close ties he has with our Tai Moas. As if by chance he had Althrita with him on one occasion. That was less than a berlon ago, within the time-period we deem critical right now. The young lady was already dressed for the reception to take place and wanted to “come to pick up the admired Eminence so dear to her heart”, original quote. She was dressed in a long heavy robe, tightly fitting in the middle and covering little up above. She even did a half-fainting act when she took her deep bow, so Cunor had to stretch out his arms and catch her. He told me that he had been in a mind to let her fall to the floor, but manners prevailed. Regrettably. She turned in his arms in a classic way, and he had to half carry her to the anteroom to have her sit down on the sofa and take a drink. And the while old Ramoros was alone in the Tai Moas’ office for a few khelas. The door was open, he was in sight-but something like that never goes perfectly and without moments of inattention or attention drawn elsewhere. Althrita did her part well enough to have it stay probable, and out of the bonds where one could safely accuse the Orcast family of a theatre act.”

Crest da Gonozal took a deep breath.

“That’s the first time I am hearing of this incident!” The Service chief could not keep a little sharpness out of his tone.

“Of course my brother’s office is perfectly guarded and automatically watched and that’s documented by ‘tronic records. So His Eminence checked everything. Later, after the reception. But that was five tontas after the incident, and if something was placed or slipped in-and from remote slipped out again-we could not prove it now. Given that Ramoros would have the means to dupe security systems at the Tai Moas’ personal office to his hand, which I would never have put past him before. Now, of course- I cannot be sure of anything anymore.”

The Tai Mascant’s voiced sounded bitter. That a whole world-view had been shot to splinters not only with him was clear. Worry and fear, mistrust of others and consternation that a thing like this could happen at all had woken in many hearts, Mekron kel’ Dermitron knew. His own included-though, as the Chief of all the Services, he never trusted anyone on anything on principle. 

“Security checks proved Ramoros to have been clean and to have but stood there without moving much”, Crest tec’ Gonozal went on. “He seemed only intent on having his daughter be alone with His Eminence for a few khelas, to let a feeling of closeness and intimacy emerge. His Eminence was-quietly furious.”

The Tai Mascant cleared his throat. “As you can imagine, Mekron, and keep this in the closest confidence, please. We thought little of the matter after, and laughed about the dilettantish try to gain the attention of His Eminence. Now, however-“

“I see.” Mekron kel Dermitron rubbed his face. The problem was, of course, that accusing Orcast-or even raising a question earnestly about his loyalty to the Tai Ark’Tussan or the Tai Moas-was fraught with even more risk than the matter merited if it did not cut to the bones of the Empire itself. Which it did now, of course, with the murders committed and the Gos athor abducted. House-Feud was only the start of the possible troubles there. 

“With the general investigation, we could go at Orcast in the same manner as we did at our own Khasurn, or at Ragnaari, at that. And since it will take pragos and even berlons for the Services to evaluate what they have found there is no conclusion to the investigation yet. But if we reopen the inquest against Orcast now-we would have to have substantial proof, and a lot of it, before we could dare to do so, Mekron, even if we have bad feelings and suspicions. “

“And we do not have such proof.” The Service Chief inclined his head. But his light red eyes had begun to glitter. “Yet. Is this an official order to me to start-unobtrusively to inquire?”

Crest sat unmoving for almost half a khela, apparently deep in conversation with his extra brain. Then he seemed to give a little start and grimly turned his wrist. 

“Yes.” His tone was decisive now. “His Eminence still hesitates. But I, as the Gos athor’s father-I am swiftly losing a lot of inhibitions I have thought to be unquestionable before. Let any possible trouble be laid at my door personally, and might the Gods help and save anyone who dares challenge me on my course. I cannot and will not declare House Feud since I am not the Khasurn Laktrote-but I can take up anyone’s challenge personally and call him to a duel. If they want to play games, they’ll see what they reap!”

With a short gesture of greeting the Tai Mascant cut the connection.  
Mekron kel Dermitron sat still for another khela in front of the darkened screen and contemplated the new developments. Da Ragnaari stood With Cup Ready, and Crest tec’ Gonozal was preparing to issue a challenge to a Mannax Duel. Gods. If Ramoros da Orcast did not watch his steps he would have to face a sharp blade indeed. Good merciful Gods, how had matters become so much worse than ever so swiftly?

“Now. This oscillation-curve?”  
Sukkar pointed to a readout which did a merry arbtan’s two-step on screen. Atlan did not hesitate.

“Looks like something were amiss, but it’s perfectly all right-as long as it is taken underwater. That’s the reading of a conversation between two Therborians. We could have such signals at certain hotels directly at the port, and the new seaside resort for alien guests. I’ve seen the ads on vid.”

A very slight smile was playing around Sukkar’s lips now, while Arim openly beamed and Jheley showed a warm smile of approval. It was the twentieth correct answer of Cunor’s in a row, and he had not made a single mistake in this examination so far.

“Right. Now-what do you think is that?”

Atlan frowned and had a closer look. This wasn’t anything the crystal had shown, and he had run that lesson five times just to be sure he had not missed anything and knew everything by heart.

“That’s not what I have studied this morning. Wait. It’s familiar. Looks more like something I’d have in my scanner shipside. On an inrun.”

Sukkar pursed his lips. “Inrun? Where? How?”

“That’s gravo patterns. Something you’d see flash up when you dump velocity on the double, racing insystem and finding you’ve got a major problem looming up on the way. It’s when grav gets through sometimes and smashes you down in your seat before the thomkay cuts in-“

“You had that experience in your ship coming into systems?” Sukkar’s heavy white eyebrows were up.

“No.” Cunor’s chin came up in denial. “Not in the mother ship, of course. But in a small boat when you take a short jump in for scouting the while the mother ship waits outsystem-“

“So. Guessed as much.” Sukkar’s eyes were alight. “Gotcha, Cunor. You’ve trained flying small boats yourself. You just know too much about details anyone but safely staying shipside doesn’t know. Like decomp drill and suit drill. Or the hopscotch havoc a malfunctioning gravo tronic can wreak. In a big mehandor ship that shouldn’t be necessary, not when it flies the safe and well-known routes. It’s different, of course, if one has to scout out the course for safety’s sake, or when scheduled meetings are fraught with risks.”

The young mehandor cleared his throat as he looked up to the tall mechanic, giving him back his challenge stare for stare.

“Taddo didn’t always go by the safest and well-flown routes everyone knows. We are-we were a small clan. Competition is harsh, among mehandor. To get your foot in you have to take risks, sometimes-the big clans owning whole fleets can go by quantity. We had but one ship and had to opt for quality and uniqueness. That’s not easily come by, but if you get what few can offer, you can ask for far better prices than others can, who have but the usual on their lists.”

“I see.” Sukkar opened his hands, placating. “I wasn’t implying something to accuse you, or to hint at dishonesty.”

“Thank you, ser.” Cunor gave that polite bow of his, a little stiffly. When he saw his family’s honour challenged he was touchy, Jheley observed, while Arim bit his lip. That honour was all the boy had left to him now of his family, no matter whether his father had done something shady on the side now and then, or not. They would have to watch it. The young mehandor did not deserve to be treated badly.

“Anyway. Well-done, Cunor. Every question I put to you you have answered correctly. Seems I can trust you to know how to interpret a readout. We’ll practice that, in the berlons to come. Understanding what you see, and knowing what to do, is your basic tool before you ever take a mechanic tool into your hand.”

“Yes, ser.” Cunor was taking Sukkar’s words very seriously, and as seriously the tall muscular man seemed to take his role as a teacher. 

Snapping his fingers shortly and nailing the boy’s light-red eyes with his own gaze, the head mechanic went on.  
“Let me remind you just once of another vital fact, though I think that you, of all people, know this by heart and do not have to be told more often than that.”

A finger came up in addition, making the point of importance. “Never be sloppy. Always do as well as you know how. Never be sorry to put in the necessary time. Downside, planetside, the perkharnoi know no better, and if a machine doesn’t work perfectly or an alignment is not done by a hundred percent, then what the hell, the matter most likely can be righted and repaired. And it very often can with little the worse for wear and often even no real damage done. A man in a glider lurching lands the thing and calls service, and grumbles about the delay. But stationside, or shipside, a converter blown can mean lives or the whole ship if you are out of luck, and oxygen tanks run out sooner than one expects or would wish for if one forgets to set the timer to remind one, or if one has been sloppy and did not remember to refill. Saw a mate once, face blue, tongue sticking out, cover plate all smeared with blood he had spat out in his last desperate tries to get air before he choked for good. That sight was no picnic, and he had thrown up and shat and wetted himself too in his death throes. The station-master had us newbies, us sila-rothi, get him out of his suit, clean the corpse for autopsy and scour the suit for recharge. I hated him for it the whole prago, and for berlons after. But I never forgot to check and recharge, ever after, and have a second look at a lot of things. Did me a lot of good, in my later life. Never be sloppy. Always go for the perfection you know, and when you realize you are out of your depth with something or have made a mistake, you do not try to cover up but speak out, and we’ll make the matter right together, Cunor. 

Hear me? You won’t be looked down at here if you admit that you don’t know everything or can’t do a thing to satisfaction. You’re young and must learn things. That’s what you are here for, in part. But I’ll have the skin off your ass if you screw up and hide it, only to have it blow up in someone’s face. Got that?”

“Yes, ser. Understood, ser. Perfectly understood, ser.” The young mehandor bowed with elegance and grace, his face deadly serious as before. Jheley and Arim held their breath. Like this, they had not experienced and known their colleague ever before.

“Right.” Sukkar’s mien became a bit friendlier again. “I bet you’ve heard that from your Taddo since you knew how to speak. But I had to make sure.”

“Yes, ser. I’ve had that lesson. I wasn’t shown a corpse, but that’s the only difference I can see. But in this, making sure and playing it safe is better than leaving matters to chance. Rest assured-what I do, and what people think of me, learning to know me and seeing my work, is all the standing my family has now. I’ll see to the honour of my father and my mother, my brother, and my teachers. It’s all they have, now. They can’t stand up for themselves anymore. But they have me to do it for them. Ever.”

Cunor seemed to have to fight tears for a moment, but he almost angrily drew his hand across his face, clenching his teeth.  
“Directions, ser?”

Sukkar swallowed, but gave the boy a firm nod.  
“Yes. Over there, a tronic to be inbuilt in a glider. Up-graded, and now it doesn’t realign and doesn’t correctly cut in with the glider’s controls. There’s a bug, but I can’t isolate the thing. The tronic is the original one, so there should be no problem. Theoretically. Practically, there is, and I cannot estimate how big a one.”

“Right, ser.” The young mehandor went over to the table and bowed over the gadget, together with the tall mechanic.  
”Have there been other alterations to that glider? New items put in? Controls modernized or added to?”

“Not that I know of, or have found. It’s a possibility I have thought of but came up blank. But of course, I’m no tronic specialist. Could be a pirate program in there, pimping up the glider and making it jump over safety lines. Don’t know, but I got just such a bad feeling. The owner is a whippersnapper arrogant and too sure of himself by far.”

“A screech-ass.”

At that solemn Sukkar broke out in a surprised cough and guffaw, while the other men laughed out loud. “A what? A screech-ass?”

“Yeah.” Cunor Lant’cer grinned. “Someone who can’t sit still but always must prove he is swifter and better and on top, someone who will fly by the seat of his pants rather than have a look at readouts, and screech by on his ass when he has to brake down hard and the glider breaks up, to have him slide on bare-assed to the wall of the launch bay to go splat there.”

The storm of laughter that shook the men at this description made up for the solemnity of the scene before.  
Working went more cheerfully after than could have been expected. Passing the young mehandor who sat at his pad, tapping away assiduously and murmuring instructions now and then to the audio pickup, Jheley made a long-drawn-out hissing noise and, when Cunor looked up, accompanied it with a gesture that imitated that arrogant young man screeching along the floor and going splat. The boy laughed, easily and merrily, and cocked his head.

“Screeech”, he said, which was answered with a query from the tronic on his pad, which could not interpret the input. At that, the grinning mechanic gave his young colleague a sign of Chan-sah, All-clear, and went on.

The easy atmosphere changed abruptly, though, when the trod of heavy-booted feet became audible and a sharp voice demanded entry at the door. Sera Krenna came from her office in a hurry and opened, to be confronted with three men in black uniforms and no smile at all.

“Sera Krenna Marneen?”

The shop-owner bowed stiffly. “Zhyrtelor Officer Jaskhor.” 

The policeman inclined his head politely and stepped into the workshop without waiting for an invitation. His two grim-faced colleagues, all of them carrying khnissagorthi, stunner guns, as well as heavy lethal Luccots of the newest kind, followed and took up stance, keeping everything and everyone in their sight.

“And what can I do for you, officer ?”

“Tell the truth and hide nothing.” Seeing her frown he added in explanation:” You are not singled out, sera Marneen. We have received orders to make a thorough search and control everything. A prison ship of the Empire is in port, and they are looking for an escaped prisoner, a most dangerous man. That one has even taken a hostage, an off-worlder boy whose life they want to save if they can. The man is not to be harmed either; must know some secrets the state wants, from what I have heard. So to protect our people we must do a thorough search, and besides finding that man and his hostage, we will hopefully flush as many brekkars out of their ducts as we can. It was time we did that anyway, with the state things have come to lately in the port district.”

Wordlessly the woman inclined her head, though her stiff back showed her misgivings. Police here, it seemed, was not a welcome saviour and friend, but a nuisance at best and a danger and a threat else, and with as relatively honest a person like sera Krenna. How would a man like Tschetrum the avkho react?  
Possibly that one was either known to authority and had greased the hands of the responsible ones, or he had the means to his hands to do a thorough cover-up. Could be both of course.  
Sera Krenna obviously did not have the money to pay for an officer’s blindness nor did she seem to deem such measures necessary, judging by the coolness she watched the policemen step forward with. 

But that equanimity was not shared by everyone, Atlan noticed, as he quickly looked around and saw Jheley’s tense smile and the twitching of his fingers. Ayyo-iyo, any halfway learned psychologist could read the sudden worry of the man and could see trouble brewing. Sukkar’s looks had become really grim too. Though with that grim man that did not have to mean anything.

“Are you looking for anything in particular, here?” The shop owner inquired, that question betraying more misgivings than she showed on her face.

“No. We’ll see what we will find.” That answer was given in a really cold tone and was fit to quell any further question. Interestingly both Jheley and Sukkar winced. Were there any brekkars hidden within ducts, here?  
Atlan did not give any sign that he had noticed anything, though. He was going to stay head down and unobtrusive, please Gods, do not let me come to the attention of official authority there-  
But authority had already noticed, and was advancing.

“You, there. New employee? Who are you? ID!” the officer snapped and loomed up surprisingly tall in front of the young mehandor who still had sat bent over his pad.  
But the boy straightened now and stood, and fished out his ID card he handed to the zhyrtelor with a polite half-bow. 

“Cunor Lant’cer, officer Jaskhor. I am newly arrived onworld and have found employment here till I have earned enough to leave again and go my way.”

The police officer gave the youth a cold and appraising stare while a nasty smile appeared upon the face of one of his men. The other man looked disgusted. 

“Mehandor, I see.” The zhyrtelor orbton had not even had a look at his scanner’s readout. Of course, he did not need to do that. Atlan wore his braid as he had done in this shop before, and his spacer trousers were revealing his origin further. As they were meant to do.  
Now the man looked down at the holo forming and raised his gleaming white brows. 

“From the Lirela, your card says. Why are you not on board? I never have heard of mehan’ kids being left alone down-planet when their ship was away, and neither has any mehan’ ship of that name come to port, lately. At least at Makarsa, where any mehan’ ship of the kind would have been guided to. It is this port that handles outsystem traffic apart from the station.”

Oh. The man was using vocabulary a spacer might, and no perkharno. He knew what he was seeing and what he was speaking about, apparently, and knew his district and its rules.

The youth cleared his throat. “About our rules for kids downside you are perfectly right, officer. I am not here of my own free will. My ship was destroyed, and I escaped as the only one alive. Since then I have tried to find other relatives of mine, but I did not have the money to go all the way.”

The police officer frowned and sent another sharp look at the boy who looked like a kid of thirteen at best. Concerning his stature; if one looked at the face, though-

“You’re mehandor. Your card says you’re thirteen passed. How old are you in real-time? Fourteen? Fifteen?”

“Ah-“ Atlan took a deep breath and opened his hands in a helpless gesture. It was the old cliché, that mehandor children were older in fact than they looked to down-worlder eyes. But that was to his advantage now. They were looking for an escaped prisoner who had taken a boy as his hostage! As sera Krenna had said, escaped prisoner his ass, the young prince thought, quietly furious and as quietly frightened deep down in his heart. They were looking for him, for the Gos athor da Arkon, Atlan tec’Gonozal, on the orders of their KOLLOSS and the authorities of this damned backwater criminal planet who were hand-in-glove with the traitors and assassins who had committed the murders upon the TONDON and had abducted him and now were hunting for him, as much was-gods-be damned Crystal clear. Tela-vhelor-not the planet of the oily season, but neither just a globe called time of plenty. This was the world of grease, of teelya toorya, bribe money greasing and smearing the hand of that criminal Tato and his cronies.  
And, he reminded himself fiercely, he had to remember that he was Cunor Lant’cer, son of Aloroy Lant’cer from the Lirela, and not one Atlan tec’Gonozal who was hunted by the authorities of this planet. No-one here was after him, a mehan’ lad, and the policemen would lose interest and go and leave him alone, because no-one cared for a thirteen Tai-Votani-old mehandor youth.

“Thirteen passed is what’s true, relatively. What also would be true, real-time-I have no idea of, officer. Comp had the data reckoned to the last click, but comp is ion dust now, as the whole of my ship is and the bodies of my family. I am sorry, ser. I cannot answer correctly.”

The zhyrtelor officer snorted and looked hard into the boy’s face. “Fourteen passed at least, I’d say”, he murmured, “rather something like fifteen or more. Stands to reason.”

Estimates got higher with the prago, Atlan thought, only faintly amused. They also were an indicator of how experienced and therefore dangerous-or efficient concerning fighting- people believed him to be. And how little they knew about the truth of mehandor age relative to the age of normal Arkonath people.

“We’ll know shortly whether you have told the truth, Cunor Lant’cer. What was your father’s name?”

“Aloroy.” The young prince forced himself to keep perfectly calm and seemingly unperturbed. The policeman sent a query via his com and had the card scanned for that purpose, again. Now Atlan congratulated himself for having spent the money on an expensive and therefore data-proof ID card. For now, the work of Tonth the forger kept the promise the man had given to his youthful customer.

“Mother?” 

“Lesanna.” Hopefully, Aloroy Lant’cer, being the mehan’zarakh’ he had been, had not had all his crew listed by name, or it would be revealing that neither a Lesanna as a wife, nor a son named Cunor was mentioned. Hradschir Lakhros’ranton, he did not even know whether this Aloroy had had a son at all, or whether such a one was of the right age for him to take his place!

“Hm.” The com beeped, proof that the zhyrtelor orbton had access to offworlder data on-spot-or that the police had, or for sure that KOLLOSS, which must have offered such access at least for the sake of this search. Made sense, of course. Gods. Daremmol, guide and support me now! Atlan thought frantically.  
Gods gracious, he was in for it if the man found out that Aloroy Lant’cer had no son of his age! A name always could be negotiated with the data registered by the smaller mehandor clans, who liked to keep their private matters private and gave the total number of crew at best-though that also changed, with sleep-overs and Deals of change-ship struck, and matches in the making. A woman stayed, while a young man jumped ship-if he was but a cousin to the ship’s owner or even less closely related. One’s heirs and immediate family stayed, and for the son of a ship’s owner a love-mate and future wife would be negotiated for to jump ship to his home instead.

The deep frown of the police officer bode well for the young prince, at least in regard to names or ages of the crew.

“Lirela blew up a little less than a Votan ago, all right, and was owned by one Aloroy Lant’cer”, he muttered. “As to the crew”-he paused, reading, and frowned deeper.  
“Fifty-three listed, period. It doesn’t even say whether they were male or female. Gods. Mehandor.”

But then the eyebrows of officer Jaskhor lifted. “See, what we have here”, he breathed, nailing his young opponent with a suddenly very piercing light-red gaze. 

“Your sweet Songbird was registered at-guess where?” The officer turned to his men with an almost evil smile curving his lips.

“Bet you for Lepso, mekh’”, the formerly smiling man said, grinning now, while the other man only spat on the floor, in a gesture of disgust and contempt impossible to misinterpret.

“Mehan-zarakh’ scum”, he murmured, too loud not to be heard. In spite of himself, Atlan was flushing in anger. Even if the man was right-as he most likely was, in the case of one Aloroy Lant’cer, out of Lepso in the Firing system, who was personally acquainted with Ehrett Jammun-he had no business, being an officer, to insult people who had a clean slate with the law. As Cunor Lant’cer, but aged thirteen relatively, surely had.

“Ae yaeh, all lanes meet Lepso, indeed”, the zhyrtelor orbton said, his tone having gone quite cold again. “A mehan skhe’ in truth, you seem to be. And your ship was reported to be in the lane to the Shemantal da Karsha Sarpa!”

The listening policemen did not give any sign that this alleged destination of the Lirela meant anything to them. Officer Jaskhor, on the other hand, seemed to understand, and so did Sukkar, the youth saw from the corners of his eyes, judging by the way the tall mechanic suddenly held his breath. And so did Sera Krenna.  
Atlan closed his eyes for a moment in exasperation and desperation. Khest’rell! Matters had gone so well for him, relatively, and now this! If Sera Krenna was suspicious and wished no trouble he could wave to his employment here a sad goodbye. He had not known, damn it all to Ereinnye, he had not known! Someone like the owner of the Lirela he had had to pick since he needed to be an orphan no-one would enquire after, and no-one could identify as an impostor. Only a mehan-zarakh’ fitted the requirements with the scarcity of data registered normally with such trader ships, and the ship had to be destroyed recently, no survivors known, and he had had to be informed well enough on the matter to be able to play a member of such a ship’s crew-only the Lirela had filled in the desperately sought blank when he had had to decide in a hurry who he could appear as, being on the run and being hunted, three pragos ago. But he had read only the one report of that Golamo agent and had had no reason to inquire further after this particular man, Aloroy Lant’cer, and Lirela his ship, so he never had learned any destinations or flight plans registered for that mehan’ ship, nor did he know any details about the man’s network or the specific wares he was offering.

Now he knew, Gods be-damned, and so, obviously, did this zhyrtelor orbton.

“Now listen to me, mehan’ skhe’.” The man bowed forward a little to face his young opponent very closely, his clenched teeth showing. The com was banged upon the table with a loud clang.

“I’ve had my years up station and out system and went on runs up to Amarynth and even beyond. I’m no fool to take any shit from you, and I will not hear any. Take me for a fool and lie to me, trying to feed me nonsense just once, and I’ll have you for it. You can have it easy with me while you’re in my district and cooperate, or you can think me soft and try to ply me with lies. Then you’ll be sorry for it a khela later.”

“Understood, officer.” The young mehandor showed a cool façade still, no fidgeting, and no nervousness.

“Right.” The orbton straightened and looked down at the boy in front of him with a grim mien indeed.

“You know that Serpent’s Reach is a restricted zone? Do you know whose territory this is? You know what’s going on there?”

“Majat.” Atlan knew as well as any Arkonide could know who had access to the most exclusive set of data provided by the Institute itself, and what Xenology at Iprasa had to offer. His own mother was an Escantha there of xeno-psychology and had had him study alien mindsets, making him know and compare Taa and majat.

“Aye. Majat. And what would your father have hauled from there, I ask?”

The young prince kept his calm mien and posture.  
“What anyone granted a landing berth at Istra station will buy and offer, after. Majat silk and jewels, of course. We were a small clan just owning that one ship and could not go for quantity or merchandise others have on their lists too. We went for the luxury segment.”

Ironic derision showed on the face of the police officer.  
“No majat biochemicals? No raw materials Lepso companies need to concoct the rarest drugs? No majat produce to be converted into those illegal pharmaceuticals that are said to prolong life? No banned export bought that will land upon Ara freighters at a meet point deep in space where no-one else sees and hears, presumably?”

Which was, as presumably, what Aloroy Lant’cer with his Lirela most likely had hauled in truth, given his port of origin and the contacts he had, and the attention he had come to by the Golamo. Gods. That report had spoken at length of Jülziish connections, not anything to do with the majat, or about Aralon, the fourth planet of a sun named Kesnar, where the Aras lived, the galactic physicians, whose shaders were on top of the drug business of any kind. Thank the Gods that this zhyrtelor orbton had no access to further data and did not know about that aspect of the whole matter. But if Lirela had run both ways-from the Graceful Ones of Gatas, as the Jülziish called themselves, to the Shemantal da Karsha Sarpa and back again, with stops in between at Firing system-then that Aloroy Lant’cer must have been a big one in the drugs business. In the elite and most advanced and most exclusive drug business, that was. No way that blow-up of that mehan’ship could have been an accident, in light of such matters. Gods. And this was the man he had chosen to stand in as his father, fool he, in his ignorance-Gods, but he had not had any better choice in the short time-window and in the dearth of data accessible which had guided that decision! 

“None that I know of, officer Jaskhor. And you cannot accuse my father and my family to have hauled such goods as you named if you have no hard proof of their having done that, begging your pardon, officer. Neither can you expect me to know all my father’s flight plans in detail when I was not bridge crew at my age.” Cunor’s posture had become stiff.

“At your age?!” The smile of the policeman was becoming almost nasty.

“You mentioned a berth at Istra station. That proves that you know the area from previous trips, don’t you? Newcomers and first arrivals are kept outside the Reach and even in special cases never are let fly further than the main station outside of the home system. I know, since I was fascinated by the majat and learned about them whatever I could. For your ship to have been issued a berth at Istra station insystem it must at least have come to the Kontrin region three times previously!” 

Atlan bit his lip. This was a detail he had not known, Khest’rell. Of course, his mother as an established Escantha at Iprasa had not been treated to the usual restrictions and limits when she went to the Reach and its central world Cerdin on a trip to do field studies before she had become close to Crest tec’ Gonozal. There was no saying, of course, whether Aloroy Lant’cer ever had been to Istra before. But given the other kind of connections he had, towards the Eastern Side of the Debara Hamtar, daring the risks that lay in leaving the Tai Ark’Tussan-that proved that he was getting protection and escort from authority there and that whatever he hauled and did was in the highest interest of said authority. The mehan’ zarakh’ had had those connections to the Graceful Ones of the Jülziish for quite sometime before, according to the Golamo agent, so it was more likely than not that he had not the first or second time made ready to go to the Shemantal da Karsha Sarpa on the fateful prago his ship was destroyed with him and all his family. Gods. But nothing of that was known to this officer, and neither did it have anything to do with him personally, or whether he had a clean record with the law here or not.

Stiffly the young prince bowed to the police officer.  
“Officer Jaskhor, my ship the Lirela did not ever haul illegal goods or went against the law, not to my personal knowledge, and neither would I be legally guilty of anything even if my father had been, not having done anything myself and moreover being a minor. That’s all that can concern us here and now, you and me. If you are worried about anything my father and his adult crew might have done, then you would have to put that up with them if they were here and had committed any crime within the jurisdiction of the law of Tela-vhelor and the Tai Ark’Tussan. But they are not here, they are all of them dead, blown to ion gas just as my ship is, and all of this is mere futile speculation and moot to the extreme. Believe me, I would very much prefer to have my father with me still, and if he had committed a crime he would have to stand up for. But he has not, and he is not alive any longer, and I am here all on my own. So please leave this matter be, officer.”

Slowly the zhyrtelor orbton inclined his head, and as slowly and deliberately said, his eyes never leaving the face of his youthful opponent:” Then let us be glad and thank the gods that that ship was blown up and a criminal crew was killed, anticipating the sentence they would have been due, and that the mehan’zarakh’ athor at the helm cannot do any harm to anyone anymore.”

In spite of himself, Atlan felt his eyes widen and the blood drain from his face at this unbelievable insult and deliberately hurting utterance. His eyes began to water with excitement, and his hands closed into fists on their own-it was not Aloroy Lant’cer he saw before his eyes, of course, but Taneth the commander of the TONDON, and once more he heard the death cry of his nurse echo in his ear. This man was insulting them, as the family and the beloved ones he really had lost-  
Suddenly the youth felt Sukkar’s hand heavily on his shoulder, holding him down unobtrusively, while at the back the thumbnail of the mechanic bit into his shoulder warningly. It brought Atlan-or rather Cunor-to his senses again. Consciously he forced himself to let the white-hot rage that had bloomed in his heart dissipate again with a deep breath, another and a third. It was no use to go against this vohjo, that would only land him in trouble, and exactly that might be what the man was aiming for. Police were no friend to the population here, he reminded himself forcefully. As one saw at every khela.

“If you think so, officer”, he said, his voice full of cold contempt, dismissing the oaf with a glance as cold and scornful, showing the man that his opinion was not worth considering and was of no consequence at all.

Unexpectedly Jaskhor of the Makarsa police smiled thinly and slightly cocked his head, taking back a step.

“You are of course right, Cunor Lant’cer, lately of Lirela”, he retorted surprisingly gently. “What concerns me here and now is not your father or the deeds of his late crew, but you. And to be able to appraise you, the newest acquisition of my district which I am responsible for, I have to reckon your true age and your background, to estimate what you would be capable of, and what is to be expected of you. I have trouble enough going on with the ones having lived here for a while. I do not need a mehan’ zarakh’ adding to the poison in the cup and happily stirring the mix! That your card names you thirteen passed is worth as much shit with a mehan’kid, and someone who likely has spent berlons in free-fall near the Light Barrier, in a ship lurking at supposed meeting points where clandestine haggling and negotiating goes on, where the crew always has to be on alert and ready to run and go into jump on the instant-meaning you have to keep up a velocity near to light speed, for pragos and berlons on end, fully exposed to time dilatation-such a someone does not have the average difference in his real-time age compared to planet-bound people! Such a person might differ in age to his relative count by Tai-Votani, wouldn’t he? Judging by how I read your face I’d put you past fourteen for sure, and past fifteen as quite likely.  
But when I provoked you almost unbearably you kept to admirable self-control, not the behaviour I’d put past a kid. You might be a young adult, Cunor Lant’cer, but you are undeniably an adult, behaving like one and obviously trained like one. Rising to sixteen or even passing that mark, in my estimation, and trained to reactions in a hazardous and dangerous environment. Give me your hand.”

Atlan did, an ill premonition rising in his heart. This man was damned well astute, much more astute and on top than he would have expected. Damn. That policeman would know immediately how to interpret what he felt.  
Snapping his fingers the officer let go again, his smile sharp and twisting. 

“Guessed so, mehan’skhe’”, he murmured. “Your stance betrayed you. And so did your restraint and self-control. You can’t be over twenty real-time, yet this would be the age where I would begin to expect such behaviour and composure like yours. Only special training can provide that, given your age, even the real-time one. You have the hands of a Dagor hertaso.”

The other two policemen looked at each other, surprised and baffled, and no little appalled.  
Wordlessly the young prince inclined his head and gave a little stiff bow. Now, what would come from that discovery of the zhyrtelor orbton?

“So you are not only a mehan’ skhe’, but you also have been trained as a kath’ zarakh’, Cunor Lant’cer”, officer Jaskhor went on. “Since you personally truly have not committed any crime on Tela-vhelor, I can’t have you packed off to the station and sent away. Or put you safely in jail to have you rot there till we can officially sentence you as an adult before you do irreparable harm to someone. But mark me.”

He nailed the youth with his gaze and pointed a finger at him.  
“If I catch you at so much of a sneeze in the wrong direction I shall have you answer for it, and do not hope to escape my attention! I shall watch out for you, and have you covered at all times and everywhere!”

Sera Krenna frowned deeply. She had her arms crossed and stood feet apart.

“Come, now, officer”, she said in an almost impatient tone. “No matter what, this is still a kid, and if you think him a young adult in some respects, fine, I have noticed that too. But whether he is fourteen, real-time, or even sixteen past doesn’t make any difference, or is of any concern to me. The good work he does is, though, and the excellent manners and the care and respect for others he displays are. I think myself to be a pretty good judge of the character of people, be they Arkonath or Araith or mehandor, and I do not see trouble ahead. At least not coming from Cunor himself. He’s alone, he’s stranded among strangers, and he is pretty much broke and has to fend for himself under very hard conditions, young as he is. Having little money he is sleeping in at a wenadoran in the vicinity, and not because he has beaten anyone there into submission, but because he came to the attention of one of their members with giving a meal to a hungry street kid for free. That’s how his character works, officer Jaskhor, not like the one of a deliberate evil-doer. But being part of that wenadoran he might get involved in street fights with the members of other gangs attacking him simply because he is the new kid on the block. If he has to defend himself then, and others get scratched, will you then have him rot in jail, as you have put it, simply because you suspect his dead father to have been a criminal? Prove it before you accuse people and have them face the consequences, please, officer. Last I heard, at least, that’s what one expects from one who follows what the law says, officer. “

The zhyrtelor orbton frowned deeply, then he sighed a little and inclined his head.  
“No matter whether he provokes anyone or stands in anyone’s way or not, under the circumstances that is what can be expected to happen”, he answered. “He’ll be in the open with these relations, aye. If he can flawlessly prove that he was the one attacked and has been but acting in self-defense I will not be able to have the matter stick. So says the law, much as I dislike that in this case.”

“Then I’ll have him wear a body cam day and night”, the shop owner said resolutely. “And I’ll hand it to him myself.”

The officer grimaced. “Does that mean that I cannot make you see sense and act according to what’s safe instead of employing such a person as this Cunor Lant’cer at your shop?”

“You got that damned well right, officer”, the woman retorted grimly. She had not changed her stance.

“Officer Jaskhor, I have no reason to make trouble for anyone, on the contrary”, Atlan said earnestly, showing his open hands. “All I’m interested in is earning the money I need to get on to a station of my own kind, where I might find a ship’s berth onboard an honest trader, and find me a family that will take me in. I’ll have a home then again, and that’s all I yearn for. You’ll see me leave as soon as I can, and the while it is in my dearest interest to keep out of trouble. That’s not only a promise but it also is logical and makes sense, doesn’t it? You don’t have to take my word on it that such a course of action would make the best sense for me.”

“Gods.” The police officer rubbed the ridge of his nose with two fingers and turned his wrist.  
“The way you speak, mehan’ skhe’, one might almost believe you and accept your word indeed. But I won’t be as gullible. Do you think that I am a new kid on the block, myself? Tela-vhelor might be a backwater, but it isn’t backwater enough with being near enough to Tranta system on the one side and to the lane up to the Amarynth Hub on the other. Perhaps you are as lost as you have made your employer believe, perhaps you are not. I, for one, doubt that you are here but by bare chance, mehan skhe’. I have had too many strangers and aliens seen come and go, and too few had only harmless purposes in mind. This world here has some nasty and unsavoury sides to it which don’t show at first glance, but which seem to draw some who are not glad of the light of day. Be warned, mehandor, this way or that way. You have no idea what’s going on here, and you better should leave alone whatever comes your way. But I fear that this hope is futile.”

The young mehandor gave another of these little bows.  
“I appreciate your concern, officer”, he replied. “I hope to stay in your good graces, and will heed your advice, mekhon. Just try to judge me justly, please, and I will do my best to fulfill your hopes.”

“I didn’t say that I had any hopes for you, or good graces at that, mehan skhe’”, the officer retorted dryly, but he seemed to relent, because now he turned his attention away from the youth at long last and let his glance pass around the workshop once more.

Relieved that authority’s glare was off him at long last the young prince threw a look of his own around and noticed that Jheley had tried to make use of the time he was not in the focus of the law and was in the process of letting small white spheres slip into the cup standing at his elbow, which had held strong k’amana. Or rather, he was at the end of this process and done with that-but the cup with the things, most likely drugs, stood openly upon the table now and would reveal its secret at the first glance thrown into it. Which was not anything Jheley could avoid with the policemen walking through the shop.

But Atlan had an idea. Sera Krenna had helped him so much and had decided to keep him on despite all the things she had heard today. He had to give something back to her and his new colleagues at work.

“Let me prepare and hand out some hot spicy tjilin all around”, he said brightly and went to do that, walking past Jheley and picking up that conspicuous cup and another empty one in one go, and poured the content of that cup right into the freezer compartment of the drinks’ machine as he came to it. Hidden by his body no-one saw, and when he put the cups into the ‘washer and took fresh ones out of the cupboard the while he dialed for tjilin at the drinks’ machine, the policemen who had involuntarily looked after the boy lost interest and looked elsewhere, beginning to question the shop owner on her deals. No-one seemed to believe in having to search the whole premises for that escaped prisoner anymore, or the hostage he had taken. That one would have tried to run before, of course, had he hidden somewhere in the shop, and would have drawn attention to himself.  
Carefully the young prince exhaled in relief as he saw the machine’s freezer compartment reseal. In there among the frozen water ice, crushed ready to be put into cold drinks-which was why he had offered something hot-those white spheres were hardly visible. Moreover, they would keep and not let off any conspicuous smell. That should do at least till the zhyrtelori would leave; after it was a problem of Jheley and sera Krenna, which for sure would be a far smaller one than the one emerging if the police found those things.  
Seeing the officers still nose around, though, after they had wordlessly accepted their cups and had begun to drink the tjilin as soon as the shop-owner and the young mehandor had downed theirs, Atlan realized that those drugs still were a hazard and too much in range. He had to get them backstage, so to say. Sukkar’s desk in the back room was best for that.

“I’ll put the rest with the can back upon your desk, Sukkar, as always”, he remarked in the general direction of the tall mechanic, who stood stiffly where he had stood the whole time since the police had come in, grimly frowning, took the ready-can with the tjilin and the freezer compartment out of the machine and, with both in his hands, walked off and left the room in plain sight of everyone. Kehene always had said that this was the best hiding place of all if it could be accomplished.

Sukkar followed the young mehandor with a burning look and suddenly moved, following him.  
“Don’t you dare to be as clumsy as yesterday and spill that drink over my desk!” he growled, marching past the second policeman without looking at him at all, and was at the back in the next moment, the door he had angrily crashed to shielding them from any view.

“Cunor!” Now the mechanic’s voice sounded like a hoarse whisper. “Wait!”  
The young prince did so, having put the can and the freezer box down, and looked at Sukkar expectantly. He already had realized that the man had some other problem than drink spilled.

Ripping open a drawer the mechanic took out several spheres of metal, their sizes ranging from fist-like to half of that.  
Atlan immediately recognized the kind of mini-positronicon they had dealt with before when he had had to calibrate the malfunctioning lift.  
At his questioning glance, Sukkar explained shortly while he apparently desperately looked for a better place to conceal the items. 

“I bought them cheaply and have hoped for good profit”, he muttered. “At that price, I knew the man must be an avkho, but if I hadn’t taken the offer, another man would have, and the original owner whom they must have been stolen from never would have gotten them back, and neither could I have found out who he was. Problem is, I haven’t had the time to hack them, and neither has that avkho done that, as far as I know. So they must bear their original ‘tronic signature still. What I cannot find out the police can very well, if they are listed stolen-and I’ll be in for it down to my ears in shit. I must hide them better-“

“Dispose of that ice together with the other content of that box, please”, the boy said firmly. “Down the flasher of the toilet, I’d advise. As for these ‘tronics, I can do that job and change the signature. But for that, I’ll need time, about ten khelas. I-“

The door opened, and both whirled round to face police which was catching them red-handed. But it was only Arim, obviously on his way to the said toilet.  
He closed the door casually and immediately went to the side of his colleagues, whispering fiercely. “I noticed matters amiss. How can I help?”

“You’re a gods-send, Arim”, the youth answered with a relieved smile. “You’re the talker in this shop, aren’t you? Ten khelas, I need but ten khelas for police to keep out of here. Please talk to them and keep them away. Sukkar will be really grateful to you.”

The younger mechanic eyed his colleague sideways and simply turned his wrist. “Will do”, he replied shortly, waiting his turn while Sukkar pelted into the toilet chamber to throw the ice into the flasher, giving it back to his youngest mate and went out, crashing the door to again as if there had been an argument. None of the men was bad at pretending and playing roles for the benefit of someone to be duped, Atlan thought and sat down at the table in a hurry while Arim swiftly made use of the facility and followed the tall mechanic. Outside arguing could be heard. Sera Krenna did her own part in confusing matters.

It took nine khelas and a half to get the job done. Having had some exercise and experience with the tronic from the elevator the young prince knew exactly what to do. But what should he do further with the reprogrammed gadgets? If they were found in a drawer they still would be taken for contraband and closely examined, which perhaps was less convenient. He would have to resort to the dictums of his teacher Kehene, Atlan decided. Anything hidden in plain sight was hidden best. No-one would suspect that a thing that was flaunted before the eyes of everyone, for all to see, was something a person wished to keep hidden or secret.  
Opening the door leisurely and carefully, balancing those five spheres in his other hand, the young mehandor came out of the back room and went over straight to Sukkar who stood with arms crossed facing a policeman, apparently over an item he had been working on, and held them out to the mechanic. 

“By the way, since I was at the back, I got them out of the bag. Brought them for you this morning as I have promised. They are of good quality and should fetch a good price. I’ll give you the commission you asked.”

Sukkar glared helplessly while the zhyrtelor, the one who before had looked at the mehandor boy disgustedly, pounced upon this possible prize of fraud or contraband like a Kasha Cat. “What’s that?” the man stretched out his fingers and almost ripped the gadgets out of the youth’s hand, who cried out.

“Careful, officer! That’s all I have left of my ship’s and my family’s wealth! I want to convert them to credits to help me get through here. So please do no damage to my meager possessions!”

“Yours?!” That was asked in a derisive tone, but when the boy drew himself up stiffly and the orbton came up to see, the policeman gave the small positronicons up with a sullen look and laid them on the table.

“Stolen goods or smuggled wares, I bet, officer Jaskhor. We should confiscate them. Can’t be any good with anything that mehan’skhe’ had in his hands.”

The orbton drew up his chin in denial.  
“First we must see whether they truly are listed stolen. We must keep to what the law says.”

It was a significant matter that the other policeman reacted that sullenly, showing disappointment and resentment like that. Apparently that man was used to confiscate, and that way, steal, whatever he set his fancy on, from people he thought could not defend themselves against him. The orbton Jaskhor, at least, seemed to be honest enough. Gods. If uncle Cunor knew that such things went on upon colonial worlds-  
He would for sure learn as soon as he was back home. But for now he was Cunor Lant’cer!

The zhyrtelor orbton scanned the gadgets, which yielded up their signatures readily enough.

“Amarynth origin”, he said, his gleaming white eyebrows rising. The boy snapped his fingers, confirming.

“I exchanged the goods I could salvage from the escape pod early on into something I could carry, and at Amarynth found a mehandor clan which would sell these for the items I had-anyone else but a mehan’ clan would not have taken what I could offer, with systems compatible, you know”, he explained, apparently oblivious to the suspicion in the orbton’s eyes and of the disappointment of that one’s subordinate.

“And then, with that clan, I could be sure I would get an honest and fair deal. The goods are approved by our Nocto-Nos.”

Which they were, by their signature, unmistakeably, the police officer announced. He appeared somewhat mollified as he handed the positronicons back to the youth.

“This, at least, is clean trade”, he said. “If you have such to offer I will not stand in your way if it is a private deal, handling your profit by commission paid to a resident and citizen to this planet since you damn sure have no trading license for Tela-vhelor.”

“No, officer Jaskhor”, the young mehandor responded, giving that slight elegant bow of his. “I could not have afforded the fees. So my colleague gets a commission for what he sells in my name, and sera Krenna gets the sales fee proper, from the profit, which I can afford then. Since this is a shop also selling spare parts she has the license for such kinds of goods.”

A single eyebrow went up, and a very slight smile appeared upon the officer’s face. 

“Knowing the rules, are you, and willing to play by them? In that case, you will not meet any trouble from me. But watch out not to overstep any boundary. What I have said before holds good. I’ll hold you to any mistake you make. You’re too much of a wild jumping piece on my district’s board, young mehan’ skhe’.”

Wordlessly the boy inclined his head while the policemen started a thorough search through the shop proper, looking closely at the whole premises and scanning everything. But now the area yielded nothing illegal or doubtful, and after another half-tonta the men took their leave.  
While the orbton and one of his men entered the next shop the disgusted man turned back and demanded his share of the fee, for allowing it at all and for not confiscating what could have been his without the boy being able to fight him for it.  
Atlan began to feel annoyed and truly angry. The man had no shame to say all of this quite openly, and neither had his more honest superior come back or called his man to him, though he surely must know what was going on now. That far his fairness and honesty did not extend, it seemed!

Quoting the very text of the law to him regarding sales fees and sales licenses the young prince baffled and confused the obviously not too highly educated zhyrtelor, and challenged him to give him line and quote of any law that said that he could simply confiscate what his superior had scanned and confirmed clean and lawful. Moreover, Sukkar was coming up, looming ever nearer and taller, with an expression not friendly at all, and sera Krenna moved in from the other side, equally grim and quite annoyed herself now. The policeman obviously began to feel uneasy-proof that he knew full well that he stood on shaky ground-and neither was he supported by his colleague and his officer, who moreover was calling his man by the beeper now. It was clear that this zhyrtelor had overstepped his bounds and stretched matters beyond their limits.

So the policeman just fiercely told the young mehan’ skhe’ that he too would watch every twitch of his and watch the wenadoran he was staying with and would see whether this shop here was honest too, at which point sera Krenna only grimaced, displayed the youth’s ID card once more, the work records and the receipt for wages paid, all right and proper, said that with this employee of hers everything was clear and clean, and more or less told the oaf to get out, they had work to do and were not paid for this kind of doubtful entertainment.

Angrily the zhyrtelor hissed at the boy: “So watch it, mehan skhe’. In that company of that house, you might get into trouble swifter than you can say Thuyhehhor Mhorymer, and then you’ll be on your belly before me!”, and left at long last.

They all were staring after him, and the first sigh of relief could be heard from Jheley.  
Demonstratively Cunor crossed his arms and slowly and loudly said:” Thuyhehhor Mhorymer!”

At that, the people in the shop broke out in a sudden gust of laughter. They had weathered this together and had come out unscathed.

Unexpectedly the shop owner gave a sign to all her men.  
“We’ve got to talk”, she said. Looking at each other the men followed her to her office. Jheley and Sukkar knew that they had risked trouble which would have rebounded upon their employer, and knew that they could face consequences, while Atlan wondered whether he was too high a risk for sera Krenna after all.  
She gestured her employees to chairs all round; Jheley had trouble facing her directly, while Sukkar met his employer’s glittering light-red eyes squarely.

“You know that we have run the gant very closely this time, men”, sera Krenna said in a hard voice and faced her employees one after the other. Cunor had his head up and sat with back stiff-a good sign, in all, that he would not fold in under pressure. As he obviously had not under the catastrophes meeting him before either, or now when he had been attacked so personally by authority.

“We’ve had to face hard times before. There was gang war in the district, before you came on, Cunor, and we had to literally defend these premises with a shocker in hand and had to deal with threats from more than one side. Happens, in port districts, as things like the scenes today might happen again, and we’ll have to face them then once more, together as we did today, and deal with matters as we did now.”

The men inclined their heads and turned their wrists, agreeing. What they had not expected to get was encouragement and approval after what they had done, save for Arim, and it touched their hearts.

“But.”

Sukkar bit his lip while Jheley hung his head.

“I will not have trouble brought on the premises by you when you could avoid it! Jheley, it was extremely dumb to carry kholai with you just in your pockets. When I saw you fish them out more or less in front of authority I thought my heart would stop. You realize what you almost threw us all into?!”

“Aye, sera.” The man looked up with a truly remorseful gaze. 

“Dumbass doesn’t cover it! If you have to take such shit you do it privately! What came over you to bring this stuff to my shop?!”

It was remarkable and said everything about sera Krenna and this district, this town, and this planet that she did not hyperventilate and did not seem to consider firing Jheley or Sukkar for their offenses or did not wonder about Jheley taking drugs at all. Such a vice seemed to be considered a minor offense here and nothing anyone would make a fuss over. Gods.

“Sorry, sera Krenna.”

“Sorry?! Bringing drugs to my shop and having them accessible like that is no trivial offense! Do you know what would have happened to you, and me and my shop, and to us all if the zhyrtelori had found what you so blithely carried around in your pocket and simply put into an open cup more or less before their eyes? You Gods-be obtuse Parango! What was that stuff?”

“Makalynno, sera.” Jheley looked down again.

The shop-owner took a deep breath and made a short gesture.

“Good for you, Jheley, that it wasn’t anything worse. But you’re well aware, aren’t you, that you would have had to spend a berlon in jail and would have had to pay three Votani’s wages for that kind of shit, and I would have had to pay a fine too that I let any stuff onto my premises, knowing or unknowing-and if I were unknowing I have not looked well and closely enough, haven’t I? As I apparently have not, having trusted in your good senses! Gods, any kid would have better senses than carrying kholai stuffed into your pockets!”

“I’m extremely sorry, sera. It will not happen again, ever, sera, I swear.”

“And can I trust anything you swear to, Jheley? How come you had that little sense at all? You’re good at what you do, and I could trust you up to now. I’d be sorry to lose you, but Gods hear me, if I get into severe trouble because of you you’ll have to make it up to me down to the last skalito and we will see whether I can risk keeping you on. Have you understood me?! The zhyrtelori are after Cunor here because they suspect his father to have been a drug dealer on a grand scale, which is all one to me because he did nothing to me, or upon this planet. But that means that authority will watch me for drugs all right, which should not have been a problem with all of us clean. And then you of all people come up with your pockets full of kholai! Parango doesn’t cover it either!”

Jheley bit his lip. He looked truly unhappy and almost desperate now. His short white hair seemed to stand on end and stuck to his brow with sweat.

“Sera, please-I have made friends with a few gradscheps up the street on a happy night two berlons ago. One of them met me on my way here and offered me the stuff cheap, and since I did not wish to offend him and since I sometimes like to go under with some sweet trank I accepted, and then had nothing to put the stuff in but my pockets. Thought that I could put it away somewhere better fitting during a break at pragolar. But the zhyrtelori came first.”

“So either this was a coincidence, something I do not easily believe in, or your so-called friend is a chappa for the zhyrtelori. They went at Cunor first because they were surprised by him and his presence, and he looked to be the bigger catch. Could very easily be that otherwise, with him absent, they would have gone at you to get their fines and have me listed. Dammit, Jheley, have you not learned anything about police here in Makarsa yet? You came of upcountry Six Tai-Votani ago, granted, but by now you should know that traps lurk everywhere! If you want to trank out sweetly get yourself something legal, there are enough choices for that! And ware of those so-called friends! They’d split the fines with the zhyrtelor who deals with them, and laugh at you! Wake up, parango!”

“Yes, sera. Understood, sera.” Jheley’s face and voice had become grim and firm. It seemed that he understood that he had been had and made evil use of. 

“Thank the Gods Cunor played a real chappa for you and took their attention, and later covered for you as a pakka-tho, if I understand that correctly.”

“Yes, sera. You do.” That came from Sukkar, who had flashed the drugs away in the toilet and had watched how the boy had slipped them out of the room and gotten them to the back.

She compressed her lips and let her sharp gaze slide to the tall mechanic. “And you, Sukkar. I gather that those mini ‘tronics originally were yours?”

“Aye.” Sukkar’s face was stony, but he must know that he was in the wrong, for his fingers twitched. Interesting. Atlan had always been confronted but with his teachers and trainers, who taught him about practical psychology and had shown him how to read the body language of others. But being experts in that matter themselves they had given little away if anything and that little had been more deliberate than involuntary. At Court only the children were as easy to read as he himself had been when he had been smaller, the young Gos athor thought, and the adults, officials and men of the Fleet and nobles, most of them Eldrith, had had no mean education either and knew the same principles as he had been taught them. To read a trained Eldrith noble with his or her rigid self-discipline and self-control was really hard. But people here, upon Tela-vhelor-they seemed not to have been taught any of the principles of psychology. One could read them like an uncoded file. Did the perception they must have of him, then, thinking him that absurdly older than he was and believing him to be a young adult, have to do with the fact that he had self-control as good as any adult here, and better? There was a thought. These people here had most likely little doings with nobles, let alone ones of the Eldrith rank. That he had to use the average Satron here and that no-one spoke Court Arkona was logical. But as logical it was that no-one here had had any experience with nobles above the rank of an On. At least not on a daily basis. They could not know how he had been trained or what he had been taught. He was only beginning to see the differences, Atlan realized and should pay attention to these differences, find out what people expected to meet and adapt to that. Must pay attention, and adapt, and on the double, or he would stand out and raise suspicions! Thank the Gods that his other-ness seemed to be covered by his role as a mehandor kid. People here, not being mehandor, had no first-hand knowledge of mehandor culture either and did not notice what a true mehan’ sekh’ would have seen at first glance, thanks to all the Gods and Daremmol the God of Traders and of clever dealing and cunning, first of all. 

Sera Krenna sighed, frowned, and compressed her lips. She looked more unhappy than angry as she had with Jheley.

“Gods.“

There ensued silence of perhaps a khela. The men did not look at each other but at their boss, waiting for her verdict. The sturdy woman surely had the respect of her employees.  
“Don’t misunderstand me now, Cunor. You will not stay for too long, we all know that since you will leave to go to your own kind as soon as possible and as soon as you can afford the trip. But you have proven already on this prago that you are a true part of this team, willing to run risks for me, to take action for all of us and this shop, and you succeeded to save our asses. I have to thank you, and for the time you stay with us, I also accept the loyalty you have shown me and my men. I very much doubt that you were ignorant of what could have happened to you if you had gotten caught by the zhyrtelori.”

“I was not.” The young mehandor gave a small bow. His face was perfectly serious. 

“Sera Krenna, you have accepted my services when you could not be sure that I would not be a bad deal, and have shown honesty to me who am a stranger and belong to a different people, whom you did not know and had no idea what you took in with that package. You took me in like- like another ship would have, kind of on probation, to see what I was made of. To me, you are somewhat like my new crewmates. And a mehan’ crew stands together and stands by the Deal, and keeps their word to each other, down to blood and death. That’s what I was taught, and what I have learned. Till I am taken in by a true mehandor crew sometimes in the future you’re my crew and my family, as are the members of that wenadoran who let me berth with them. I know that you use different words for that. But this is how it is for me.”

“Gods. “ Arim’s mouth stood open, while Jheley looked at the boy wide-eyed and Sukkar ‘s eyes had turned a deep red with emotion.

“Gods, lad, you have no idea what you are in for, if you mean that for real”, Jehely said, trying to make a joke to relieve the serious mood. 

“He means it”, Sukkar’s deep voice betrayed his feelings. He seemed to be deeply touched. “If he says it like that, being mehandor, quoting the Deal, then he’s absolutely serious and true. I know a little about the mehan’ kind.”

“So do I.” Sera Krenna showed a rare warm smile. “That was brave and good, loyal and-downright cunning of you, Cunor. Don’t get me wrong, we are honest people here-but we have to get by under sometimes rough conditions. As must your new friends of that wenadoran, and as your family must have. I believe that the clan of Lant’cer, registered as it is at Firing and Lepso, must have had to weather some rough storms too.”

The boy’s face twisted. “Aye, sera”, he sighed, but he did not say more or gave further information. The shop-owner could think of the why. The boy must come of a shader a clan, a mehan’zarakh’ ship in truth, just as the police officer had said. But as long as he did nothing illegal or dangerous here, and was no danger to her shop or her men or herself, that was all one to her. People in this district at the port of Makarsa learned to be tolerant of each other and let each other be, and learned to live with the shade. Sometimes it was good to get out of too much sun, and that had not been the first time Sukkar had bought something off an avkho and so had brought tidier profit to the shop. She had tacitly accepted that when she had been handed her share by her employee. Sukkar had some useful connections left from his time up-station.

“Whatever you learned, where and how, is of no concern to me. But your talents have saved the prago for us today, Cunor. Thank you.”

At that, the boy’s eyes lighted up, and he smiled openly, daring to at long last. Jheley held out his hand and grasped it with fervour.

“A deep thank you from me too, Cunor. And one to Arim.”

The lanky mechanic got his due now too, applause which he took with a bow of his own, which looked more comical in his case, though. Sukkar only laid his hand upon his young colleague’s shoulder and pressed it, hard, and gave a deep nod to Arim. He was not a man of many words, but he was understood by his colleagues nevertheless.  
“Right, men. Let’s get started on work again. We’ve lost time enough as it is.” Sera Krenna shooed them out of her office, and the men went to work with alacrity. But the whole day long they were happy and merry, and even Sukkar joined in the good-natured and sometimes hilarious banter that went on sporadically between them.

Rhonn was impatient. Impatient to get on with the exercises, unwilling to practice only keeping in balance standing there and concentrating on nothing but feeling that balance and on the correct breathing pattern. He wanted to learn how to hit and kick an opponent, while his young mehandor friend tried to explain that basics had to come first, basics that would one let hit the harder and stay firmly on one’s feet no matter what. He knew how to keep upright and how to hit hard, and he needed the grips, and the movements, much more than he needed those breathing sila-rothe’s games!

Atlan sighed, and went with his fingers through his hair in exasperation, facing his Dagor disciples in the inner courtyard of their house again this evening. The yellowish light of the lighting sphere hovering above them in the center let this feel like a warm summer day, while the deflector shield covering them projected an empty and dark courtyard to anyone prying. 

“Rhonn-I understand that you want to see action. And you’ll have that as soon as possible. But before the third step, the first and second one must come or you will fall! Do you wish to learn a few clever moves that will surprise your opponents at the first time and no more, or do you wish to learn the principles of Dagor? I can teach you a few moves you can make good use of, no question to that. But that won’t be Dagor. It will be something like what you know now, not bad, but nothing remarkable either. That way, you will be limited to the strength you can make use of now and no more. With Dagor, you can go so much further.”

“So how long will it be till you can teach us useful moves after we have learned the principles of breathing and stances well enough?” The gang-leader was frowning and stood hands on hips. In his training shirt, armless, one saw the muscles on arms and chest very well; Rhonn had an athletic and well-trained body and knew how to move. No question that a girl would think him attractive or a man would become cautious, having to fight him.

“A berlon till you would halfway know how to breathe if we stay to training rigidly, and the whole Votan to get to learn the basic stances and movements together with the breathing rhythms. Three Votani to start on basic fighting moves with breathing in rhythm.” Atlan stopped, realizing the problem they were faced with, and he had given them the time one needed to learn properly if one could at least devote every evening to Dagor training, and could practice independently for tontas in between. The boys and girls of this wenadoran most likely did not have that much time to spend on Dagor training, and he did not have that time to teach them either. He had to put his efforts into finding data, and getting out of here, instead of spending half his time on the training ground in this courtyard. 

Rhonn grimaced, seeing Cunor check.  
“Aye, there’s the hitch, isn’t it? You want off-planet as badly as a man running from a Yilld, and I even understand that well. Tela-vhelor’s not the worst planet to be on in the whole Tai Ark’Tussan, but it’s quite near to being the tappol of where a chap like you wouldn’t want to be stranded. I bet. You’ll be off-world the moment you have won the last skalito of the price of your ticket, and no-one here could and will blame you. But that means that you won’t have the time to go about teaching us the way it should be done, in your eyes. And we don’t have that time either. Tscheketh’s on the move, he’s rounded up Kolyan and his wena’ downtown, and he’ll come up to round up us and go for Morenth himself if he can, and he won’t be long on trying for that. So get a move on what you teach us, merchanter mate. You think this here is a game, a tame exercise, and no more, do you? Exercise and practice, nothing for real yet. That might be so up on a mehan’ ship where it’s all safe and secure, and you take a tumble for that tumble’s sake with no danger threatening else. Here, we practice moves and hits because we got to fight with them, and that’s no game or just a contest either. It’s for real, and the loser of such a fight loses more than points. It’s a fight for life and death down here on this planet and this town and this district, merchanter mate, and you better wake up to that fact, because now that you are here, and as long as you can’t get off the planet, you’re stuck with this gant. That fight for our lives is the only game on in town for the likes of us and now for you, and you either learn the rules swiftly and play and fight by them, or you are off the board-and that means that you are dead, mate. Got that, Cunor?”

Atlan swallowed, and felt that his mouth had gone dry. He was getting his hard lectures today in abundance, it seemed, first from Sukkar and the zhyrtelori, and now from the gang-leader whose grim mien showed well that he meant what he was saying, and that he knew that what he was saying was perfectly true. The other members of the wenadoran snapped their fingers or turned their wrists in agreement, and the young Gos athor had to admit to himself that Rhonn was right and had a point and even more than one. He had trained with Kelta and Kehene, and had been instructed by has’athor Kenos and his own father to have him learn Dagor properly step by step. He had had to Run Rooms for almost a Tai-Votan by now, three times a berlon.

But it was perfectly true that whenever he failed or made a mistake it was but points he lost, and the few scratches and real injuries he had sustained had been light and relatively harmless. The training he had gone through had in truth been but practice and nothing real, much as it was meant to teach the young Gos athor for real and prepare him for true fights later when he was an adult serving in the fleet-though a commanding officer of the rank he would have seldom was called to hand-to-hand combat.  
His first hard grapple with real fights had been but five pragos ago when the TONDON had been attacked, and he had seen his beloved nurse and his people die. Four pragos ago he had fought for real the first time on his own, escaping the abductor’s ship and getting down here. He had found that he had been trained and prepared well, but it was true that that had been the first time he had fought anyone in truth. Gods. Rhonn was right-and the way he had fought all his life had been that kind of fight. Gods, again. Slowly he was beginning to understand a bit more about a lot of things, the young prince thought, swallowing once more.

“Got it, Rhonn.” Cunor was serious and gave that little elegant bow of his. “You’re right in what you say, and you are right about my exercises shipboard. But I have faced real fights, and real danger, only it wasn’t done on the streets of a port city on a planet. Dangers and fights look different if you sit in a ship. That looks and feels as detached and unreal as exercise would, till it suddenly gets real when smoke billows out of ducts and you hear the screams of men caught by sudden flames, burning alive. When you are running from suited men grabbing for you and you slip in the blood of a corpse who was your brother, trying to defend you, a few khelas ago, or when you are tumbling through space in a tiny craft, not much bigger than your body is, and feel overwhelmed by that nothingness out there where you are all helpless and exposed, not even a sun warming you or a planet’s gravo field holding on to you. When you have to watch helplessly as all the home you knew is snuffed out of existence and all the voices you have known for family are silenced, and you know that you will not hear them again in this life, not ever. And the while you know that it is not over but that you are hunted and will have to run as swiftly and as far as you can, as soon as you have got a deck beneath your feet again, no matter where and when and how. That wasn’t fun either, Rhonn, and neither can I say that it wasn’t for real-much as I would want to exit the gym after this and meet my mother in the lab and tell her how I did, this time around.”

The tall gang-leader grimaced and inclined his head. “Of course”, he answered softly. “I understand. But the better you should understand too now about real fights, and about having no time to dawdle and to play games.”

Somewhat indignant Cunor frowned and threw back his head in denial. “You’ve seen my results and the strength I could hit your pakka-tho with”, he said sharply. “The correct breathing patterns with Dagor aren’t anything one could call redundant or could omit. Whatever else we cut short, this isn’t the part we can be sloppy about. Either I show and teach you Dagor, or I don’t. This is it. If you won’t take the time to learn at least the essential basics and think you can’t afford it, fine, I won’t contradict you. But then whatever you learn won’t be Dagor, but just a few nice moves and hits like the ones you already know. That berlon I spoke of we will have to take, and at least another one for basic stances, and I will think upon what you won’t need and what will be most useful, and can be taught, with the time we have, you to learn and I to teach. I get it that I can’t do this properly the way I was taught. So I will find a way to show you something simpler. But the basics-they’re essential. And they are worth the time spent, Rhonn. You know that I have pulled my hits when we fought. If we were attacked now and I fought with full force, I would overcome and kill three opponents going at me with knives, and have them lie dead at my feet with me standing over them unscathed.”

Rhonn grimaced and snapped up his hand in strong denial. “No, you wouldn’t, Cunor”, he retorted shortly. “You’d be the one dead on the ground, no matter that you knew Dagor and could breathe like this and could summon much more strength than your body would normally yield. And do you know why?”

Cunor frowned deeper, but he opened his hand in an inviting gesture without arguing on. Good, that meant the merchanter was wise enough to be able to listen and learn in spite of what he knew and had learned, thinking himself the better fighter. Which he was, on the one hand. But on the other, where it counted, he was just a pampered sila-roth. 

“Because you would have hesitated and pulled your hits, I bet, and would have given your enemies one chance too many!” The gang-leader’s voice was hard, and his mien was grim.  
“Have you ever actually killed, Cunor, in the fights you have had to fight? Or did you even have to fight for real before your escape from your enemies just before you landed on our world?”

The young mehandor had blanched, and his lips made a thin line. Now he snapped up his hand. “No. Not before that.”

Rhonn inclined his head. “As I have guessed. You behave like that, with your fighting having been but exercises before, and no real fight for life and death. That’s all right for ship-folk having been raised in safe surroundings, I suppose. Though you have had to learn that they were not as safe. You worked as a hacker for your father, merchanter chap, and I bet those missions were all done in stealth and hidden while your brother and your mother played the chappai for you, as you told us. That’s all right for such a purpose, but it did not let you come face to face with real opponents to fight in full earnest.  
That’s what you will have to learn here, Cunor, fast and immediately, that you cannot give quarter or hesitate with killing if it is necessary. You’re safely shipside no longer, and that place where you could afford to hesitate and pull your hits no longer exists, but has like you said it, been snuffed out of existence. Better you realize that in full, and live by it, merchanter mate, and immediately-for if you don’t, you’ll be gone as swiftly, here. We aren’t just playing games and practice for fun. We try to survive and fight for our lives, and that’s what we do in training too, here and now. Got that?”

Cunor’s eyes flashed a light red, his face had become truly white, and tears had begun to leak out of the corners of his eyes in agitation. The gang-leader knew that he had spoken very harshly, but the youngster from the mehan’ world needed that advice, or he truly would not last for long in Makarsa, not even long enough to get the money for his ticket off-world. It had surely been hurtful to hear that. But better the youth heard that now, and pulled himself together, and survived, than with being used softly he’d slip and get caught by Tscheketh’s men, thinking he could argue or be considerate of the men attacking him.

“Got that, Rhonn. I hear you.” The young mehandor’s voice was just above a whisper, his wide eyes looking like dark holes in a colourless mask of stone. Uh-oh. Had he overdone it? The young man wondered, seeing that face of the mehandor boy.  
But Cunor only gave a stiff little bow and surprisingly calmly added: “ We’ll go on training tomorrow evening. Please excuse me for today. I have to think about what we’ll do in training according to what you proposed.”

He walked away stiffly without looking back at his new mates, who stood frozen, but then looked at each other and snapped their fingers in agreement.

“Bad as that must have been to hear, Rhonn, you’re right, and Cunor has to learn that in time, or he’ll be too careful in truth”, Selaron said, looking after the mehandor boy. Karena sent a reproachful look at the older youths and made to follow Cunor, who seemed to be on his way to the cellar where they had the gym and a few small rooms for working and storage where one could be alone and was held back by Rhonn.

“Leave him alone, Karena”, he advised. “He’ll need some time to come to terms with reality as it is. I know how it was for me when my mother died, and I did not have to give up the rest of my world. He’ll need his time to adjust, no question. But Tscheketh and others of his ilk won’t give Cunor that time to do it slowly. He’ll have to learn how to fit in and deal with this world swiftly, or he’ll fall victim to it, and you know that’s true. So let him deal with matters on his own terms.”

Privately Rhonn expected the young mehandor to throw a tantrum now, and hit the dummy in the gym till his fists bled. He did that himself when he was in a mood. He’d let him have that fit, and perhaps some crying and yelling, and then he’d challenge their new friend to a good workout and fist-fight, which might help him to get back into balance. In truth that matter of Dagor was quite a good and interesting thing; they just needed to get it on their own terms, not having to play by the rules of an off-worlder who had no idea about situations down here. Kreto, Morenth’s pakka-tho, had had his brows up in interest as the young gang-leader had reported on their new bunk-mate and asked the usual terms of protection for him too. Kreto had promised that without even checking with his athor, provided the mehan’zarakh’ taught his wenadorane mates, whose fighting power, and their usefulness for Morenth, was increasing no little with such an acquisition. But that was nothing the young Makarsan could have told his new friend on the spot. Cunor had to do this out of his feeling of gratefulness and his free will, not something he owed as payment to anyone but his new mates.

Atlan felt as if he was walking upon a gravo field that was unsteadily fluttering and threatening to go off, to let him fall into the gaping abyss of the veritable Thuyhehhor Mhorymer. The Abyss’s maelstrom seemed to suck him down; every moment his knees could give and then he’d fall, tumbling through space as he had imagined it to Rhonn, exposed, helpless, and left utterly alone.  
Gasping he held on to the wall and rested his brow on it to feel something stable, something to support him. But the wall seemed to move and turn as his stomach did, threatening to have him throw up, and he had to stumble on, his intention only to reach a private place where he could collapse unseen and have the weeping fit he could barely suppress even now.

To have it hammered home to him as mercilessly as that, that he was all alone and that whatever he had known and loved was gone and out of reach for him, that here he was in a hostile and dangerous environment with no quarter given, he who had been guarded and accompanied and kept safe and secure as the Gos athor for all his life-it was devastating to realize that this was simple truth, and the reality behind the easy life he had had. No more Lesena, no more Kelta. Not ever. They were snuffed out of existence, damn true that was as he had known it anyway-but to get it told like this had made him exist within those moments again, experiencing them, within those moments when his childhood and naiveté had shattered and the world had turned into the darker and harsher, and perhaps more true reality of Cunor Lant’cer. He had been kept safe, all right. But milliards of soldiers, of colonists, of merchanters had known this dangerous reality as their only one. Milliards of kids upon thousands of worlds lived as Rhonn and Karena did, having lost their parents, having to fight for their lives, knowing no security but the one they made for themselves, weapon in hand. Milliards of citizens of the Tai Ark’ Tussan had been hurt and bereft by the war and seen beloved ones die as he had, now, had died themselves as his Silvers had done, choking to death, burning alive under Maahkath fire as the crewmen of the TONDON had done, gotten shot by the enemy as the bridge crew had been. He was better off than Rhonn because he had a home and a family to return to if he managed to return at all on his own and escaped his abductors for good. But till he could accomplish that feat he was all alone, his second mother murdered before his eyes, as had been his teacher and the attendant, and as his bodyguard had been, defending him to his last breath. Gods, Gods, Gods! 

Covering his ears and squeezing shut his eyes the young prince staggered into the gym and heard its door slide shut behind him, and fell onto his knees upon the first mat laid at the ready. But pressing his palms to his head was to no avail. He heard the death cry of Lesena in his mind and saw her being ripped apart, her blood spurting everywhere, before his closed lids. He could feel the blood of Kelta and the Silvers stick to his fingers, cold and clammy and smeary, the cloying smell of death permeating his nose and sticking to the back of his mouth as had the smoke coming from burning bodies, bodies of the TONDON’s crewmen. The short hisses of the beamer guns, burning out the brains of the unconscious men and women of the bridge crew sounded in his memory, while his own cry, echoing his nurse’s, reverberated in his head. 

“No”, he whispered, and desperately repeated it. “No, oh Gods, no, please no.”

But it had happened, and he had been abducted and locked up, and had not had any contact to anyone he could trust again ever since. His father had sent his own message to the whole of the Tai Ark’Tussan and had reached his son. But that son could not reach back to his father or his mother or his uncle the Tai Moas, and they could not have any idea where he was, and how to find him. His father had told how they were searching for him and had expressed every hope that they would find traces and would find a trail of clues to follow. As yet, no-one had hit upon the Amarynth sector, and how could anyone think of this world of smelly grease, situated in the backwater eddies of the Debara Hamtar, the tappol of anywhere?

He was all alone in a kind of dangerous wilderness, where few were friendly and most were just waiting for a chance to go at him, might they be corrupt zhyrtelori or zarak-thoi, and he was hunted by his enemies, the men who had murdered the crew of the TONDON and Kelta and Lesena and had abducted him. With them, hand-in-glove, were the authorities of this planet, the Tato, the secret police named KOLLOSS and the normal police deployed to aid them. Gods-he was all alone, and Rhonn had been right to warn him about the abilities and powers he had thought he could employ. He had damned well overestimated his chances and the means to his hand. Whatever training could prepare for and achieve, it was no true combat experience, and that he was lacking. He was lacking the edge of real experience, was what. He was slow to correctly assess a situation and did not know what to do. He was slow to react and might not react according to his needs, picking the wrong measures. He was good with what he could do, he knew that. But what use was the ability to use Dagor, indeed, if he did not act in time and got shot in consequence, standing there like a vohjo waiting for his enemy to act, because he did not know if he should use a killing hit or not?

Gods, Gods, Gods again, Oh, Zhymelesa, help me, guide me-

Gods, he had no idea what he should do, what he could do, Atlan thought desperately, shivering violently, tears beginning to leak and run down his cheeks. The Abyss of Mhorymer threatened to swallow him up indeed. As he was he was no match for his enemies-  
But he had been taught, to one day be such a match for anyone. Not just yet, of course-but whatever he could do already, he was kept from by the panic which had caught him, and in whose grip he now squirmed. He had to get reason back. He had to think about his situation, level-headedly, and not with emotions overwhelming him and taking all common sense away. He had to get himself under control, which meant that he had to meditate.

Right. With gulping breaths the young prince tried to get a grip upon himself and his feelings, to stop the wild sobbing which was wracking his body, but he found that he could not stop weeping. So, helpless to do otherwise, he left himself to that crying fit and let his body be shaken by the sobs and gasps that made tremble him so violently he sank to the side to lie there, curled up in useless defense. There was nothing he could do to stop this. He was not attacked by anyone from outside; the enemy he fought came from within, overwhelming him totally: his memory of the events on the TONDON, the awareness he had for his situation, and his emotions, the utter helplessness he was subjected to, the devastating loneliness which held him in its grip-

Desperation and fear were beginning to turn into rage, as he made himself aware of his situation consciously. Good. Rage and resolve were burning away the feeling of loneliness and helplessness. That they dared to act like this against him! He’d show them! They thought him a defenseless kid, weak and vulnerable and dependent on his protectors and servants, unable to do anything on his own, going to give himself up to them in tears? He’d see them further first! 

Dammit to Ereinnye, he was not helpless, he was the Gos athor da Arkon, and he had been trained to deal with matters like this! What, pray the Gods, was the use of Running a Room every third prago if it wasn’t for learning to fight, and escape, reading the enemy’s intention and preventing him, and setting traps right back?  
Dammit, he’d show them, he’d make them so sorry that they had dared to go against him and had committed the crimes they had. He’d escape them, and reach safety, and help them get caught by the Golamo and the Kralas-Sen, watching their trial conducted at Celkar, and he would not flinch watching them die in the fire of the execution robot.  
No, Zhymathra and Zelathrol, he would watch those bastards die with a glad heart!

His teeth clenched and his hands cramped into fists Atlan sat up and opened his eyes, wiped his face and composed himself, kneeling in Dagor meditative posture. This time the long breaths he took in helped him to regain control of himself and his emotions, and of his body. Slowly the rate of his heartbeats decreased, and he felt himself grow calmer, the breaths he took coming slower, going down to normal and then slowing down some more.

Gradually the young prince slid into a meditative state, calmness and inner peace growing, prevailing over agitation and desperation and hurt. It was such a relief to feel like this, inner turmoil quietened, panic and the feeling of utter helplessness dispersing, hope and firm resolve reawakening, that he could have wept again. But he was done with tears, for now. It was time to find a solution for the demands of this environment, and these circumstances, asked of him. He had to be much swifter in everything, analyzing and assessing a situation, understanding what went on, deciding what to do, and doing it. He had to be ready for the hair-trigger reaction and its swiftness he could come up with when he concentrated deep down, focused perfectly, and followed the moves and actions he had trained, over and over. He had to be as alert and quick as he was when he Ran a Room.  
Realizing that, and knowing what he had to achieve, he had to find a way to get there-and he even knew what he must do. When he had had breakfast with Karena, when she had realized that it was him the KOLLOSS was after-he had seen that he had to find a way to be hair-trigger ready all the time. He had comprehended that he must be Cunor even better and had to identify him with a really good symbol-not just a sword, but the Sword itself, the Sword Flung Out, which raced through space, turning, unstoppable, mercilessly sharp and swift. He had to put himself upon fast-forward, and that all the time-as he did when he had to memorize and to study a lot, and had to present flawless marks upon a test or a paper within the shortest order-and see to it he kept the knowledge and that lesson in his mind for longer.

Simply sitting down to a meditation every time he knew he needed to be swift was no solution to the problem. First, that would take time he most likely would not have. Second, it would only be possible in the instances when he knew some conflict to shape up; confrontations like street-gang brawl, though, or much worse occasions like an investigation of those murderers, hand-in-glove with the Services here, would not be announced conveniently in advance. He had to be on edge always, every khela and every Sarton. He had to be able to go with the flux, with the natural flow, by kind of instinct, flying and turning with the Sword Flung Out itself. 

What he needed was not just meditation. He needed an intervention, something that would psychologically program him, influence his mind and his feelings permanently.

Atlan shivered and bit his lip, feeling a little wobbly all of a sudden even in the midst of meditation and the inner peace and concentration it engendered. What he was planning here was dangerous, irresponsible in the extreme in the view of his teachers and his mother, he knew-and there was no guarantee of success, to boot.  
Yet he had to attempt this in order to survive and to get by, he was sure of that. He needed to be able to act swiftly enough, and he had to be able to analyze a given situation in time to let him react in the manner that was necessary, killing if needful, even, or he was defenseless in the face of real danger to his life.

And neither would he do that only for himself. He was the Gos athor da Arkon, and with him, the whole of the Tai Ark’ Tussan was in jeopardy if the murderers caught him again and started to play the hostage game with his uncle the Tai Moas. He was responsible for about fifty billions of lives, on about fifty thousand inhabited worlds of the Tai Ark’Tussan, upon mehandor ships and mine colonies upon moons and asteroids. They all would suffer greatly if he failed; failed to guard his own life and health, and his sanity.  
For he did not only have to watch out for the inviolability of his body but also his of his mind, his emotions, and his psyche. Right now he had had a breakdown he could barely control, having to let it happen rather than letting emotional pressure lessen in a safe environment. The trigger experience, Rhonn speaking so bluntly about him being untried and having lost what he knew, was nothing he could have prepared for, and nothing he could have guarded himself against either. They would come again, words heard and sights seen that would prompt his memory to a reaction. He could not afford to break down in a weeping fit every time this happened; and the young prince knew that the TONDON, and her dead, were just as near to his waking consciousness as they had been before. 

An intervention then was needed, one that took care of his reaction time and his analyzation speed, as well as of his emotions and his awareness of who he was. He had to be Cunor Lant’cer the more and the better. 

Cunor was a sword, a kath’zarakh’ who had far fewer inhibitions than the Crystal prince might have, living in a far darker reality, given to bare necessity and merciless action where the Gos athor could afford to wait and see. Cunor was like the Sword itself, the Sword Flung Out, which raced through space, turning, unstoppable, mercilessly sharp and swift, following the natural flow of the universe, of events as they passed, moving as effortlessly and swiftly with his own body and mind as he followed the natural pattern and the flow of Dagor and of the asa nan’ sahín. Following that natural flow, being carried by it, he would not have to put much effort into his movements or the pattern of his actions and reactions, nor into the speed of his thoughts. He would go with the flux. He would let himself be carried by the flight of the Sword Flung Out, giving himself up to it and to Asahina, the Goddess of Fate and the asa nan’ sahín, following its path and his inner truth. There he was Atlan tec’ Gonozal as well as Cunor Lant’cer; the mehan’ zarakh’ was modeled from some true aspects of the Gos athor’s psyche, was a true part of him, and not just a mask.

He was the Crystal, and he was the Kath’ shov’ ssa, both symbols in balance, and he had to go with the Flight of the Sword, racing along the path of the asa nan’ sahín, going with the natural flow of the universe.

The one to guide him now could only be Asahina, the goddess of Fate. She it was who held the Kath’ shov’ ssa, she it was who threw it and sent a person along his or her way of the asa nan’ sahín, his or her own straight path of life and fate and existence. She was Inner Truth, the guide one could follow to find one’s own straight and true path. 

Calling upon her, opening himself up to her, laying himself into her hands as if he were a sword himself, Atlan knelt in the prayer pose correct for addressing Asahina, body upright, arms cocked and elbows pressed to the waist, lower arms straight forward at right angles, palms upward and stretched out, as if he held the Sword of Fate upon his hands, and wordlessly begged her to guide him now through this meditation and this intervention, concentrating upon the Sword he almost felt lying upon his hands.

More by following his feelings than by conscious thought and decision the young prince rose with a fluid movement, turning into basic stance and starting to move into the First Dagor Cai exercise, acutely sensing the flow of the energies through his body, aware of the fact that he was but part of the ongoing flux of power of the planet, the system, the universe. Slowly breathing, keeping to the patterns he had learned as a small child he went on and effortlessly and automatically turned into the Second Dagor Cai move, while he kept to his meditative state mentally, even deepening it by the breathing pattern of the third level, then the fourth. He never had done this, meditated like this when he had not knelt down. But he was moving, slowly but surely and effortlessly, giving himself to the pattern of movements he knew so well, which had become part of himself so much over the years of his life. Envisioning the Sword Flung Out he opened up himself to it fully, heart and mind and soul, and called upon Asahina, the goddess of fate, who held that sword in her hand and asked her to throw him and fling him upon his path, imagining her hand, like cool glittering energy itself taking him up and sending him on.

Breathing more deeply and slowly still he knew he was under perfectly, oblivious to the outside world, not even detachedly knowing where he was and how he was moving. He was in the goddess’s hand, he was the Sword Flung Out, with the Crystal at his heart, serene and glowing. He had two sides, light and dark, truth and illusion, war and peace, life and death, and the Edge bound them together, made three out of two, and made them One. Atlan and Cunor were one, one person, as the Sword, forever moving and turning, was one with perfect tranquillity and serenity, kept in perfect balance by the Crystal it was one with too. Within his heart, the two met, merged and melted together, balancing each other out, so that the swiftest movement was easy with the anchor the crystal gave to it. 

Consciously he felt the two symbols meet within him, identifying himself with the Crystal as he had done it so many times before in meditation, and now doing that with the Kath’ shov’ ssa, feeling it resting within the Crystal as the Crystal became part of the gleaming sword, flying along its path unstoppably. He was both. He was Atlan, the Crystal, and he was Cunor, the Sword, one as the sword was with its two sides, joined by the edge. This was how it was. This was truth, his inner truth. This was who and what he was.  
Feeling that and knowing that he threw himself forward, truly merging with that sword, feeling it fly on its path, feeling himself to be part of it, giving himself to that perfect flight. So. It. Was. This Was Truth. This Was Him.

His breath moved within him with the natural flow of his body’s living energy, the pravokhai, following the natural path and flow of matters and events, the pravasol, according to the asa nan’ sahin. Dagor Cai moved the khaya, a body’s energy, in cadence and guided by zhy, the power, and fire of the soul. He was moving in perfect balance, turning, breathing, simply being who and what he was. The Crystal. The Sword. Atlan and Cunor. One in perfect balance, supporting each other, guiding each other, guarding each other. Cunor’s swift anger would be tempered by Atlan’s composure and self-control. Atlan’s inexperience and hesitation would be countered by Cunor’s swift decision and firm action. Following the natural flow of the universe where things were neither good nor bad, but only and simply were as they were, they would be able to bear their memories and their feelings better and keep in balance far better, no matter how they felt or what they remembered. The Sword would carry them on, no matter what, and Its Flight was unhindered, unstoppable, following its path.

Now to implement the change he had made, the new pattern he had wrought. With the next turn of the Sword Flung Out in Space, carrying him with it, he set the Crystal in his heart to turn the other way, like an ancient mechanic lock clicking into place, key and bolt latching together, fixing matters as they were now. With its turn, the Sword left behind what had been before, and took with it what was, now. This was him. So it was. This was the truth, within and without.

Slowly the young prince became aware of his surroundings again as his breathing became swifter and less deep, as he moved through the last sequence of the basic Dagor Cai pattern and came to rest in perfect balance, feeling calm and strong and One with Himself, the Sword Flung Out with the twelve-faced Crystal, Cunor Lant’cer concealing and masking Atlan tec’ Gonozal, the brave mehan’zarakh’ guarding the young Crystal Prince, keeping him safe and taking his advice. It was done, and as it had become, it was well and good. As Cunor would say it in mehan-ido: te, sav-yes, all right.

Opening his eyes Atlan saw the face of Rhonn staring at him, surprise and awe in his eyes and mien.  
“Wow, Cunor”, the gang-leader breathed as he saw the young mehandor look at him. “This is what that breathing and that balance you spoke of comes to? No wonder then, mate, that you put so much importance to it. I think I see. We’ll take that time for basics you proposed.”

Clearing his throat he added, a little diffidently:” Thought you to throw a tantrum, now, hitting the dummy at a Votan’s worth. But instead you do-that. Looked more like a kind of dance, to me, but I think I saw where the hits were if you put more speed behind them.”

Surprised a little the young prince looked back at the gang-leader, who seemed to have changed his attitude somewhat, now.

“It’s called Dagor Cai exercises”, he answered. “I just went through basic moves right now. It’s what you’ll have to learn too, at the least, what I’ll teach you, and for that, we should have time enough. From there all the truly good hits and kicks come too. Knowing this, able to do these moves, you’ll have what you wanted, Rhonn, I promise.”

The tall Makarsan snapped his fingers in agreement. “Thought I’d challenge you to a good fight, merchanter mate, to help you get the strain off. But it seems that you’ve managed to do that on your own, and not by hitting the dummy.”

Atlan’s smile was deceptively sweet as he stepped nearer. 

“I did not need to hit the dummy to get the strain off-I’ve changed its direction to serve me instead of to hinder me. That is a better strategy to deal with stress, I believe. But the energy is still there, in consequence. Want to have that fight now? I wouldn’t mind, myself. On the contrary, I’d welcome it for the sake of the exercise. See what I’ll have to learn from you. I’m prepared to do it on the double, now. Fast as a yilld attacking.”

“Sand-yilld or yilld of the rocks?” Rhonn asked with an awful smile, moving into position. 

Cunor grinned back sharply. “Sand-yilld, I believe”, he retorted. “They do the lurking better. And strike more surprisingly.”

His hit came like lightning, truly surprising the wenadoran’s chief with its speed, and the power of its impact. He could not avoid in time and fell, sprawling, and rolled out of the way as swiftly as he could, escaping the young mehandor’s kick by inches as Cunor followed up.  
Coming to his feet with a roll and moving into counterattack instantly Rhonn landed a glancing hit with his fist at the shorter boy’s shoulder instead of at his temple, because Cunor had seen and turned in time. Still, the young mehandor gave a strained “ooff” as he whirled out of the way and took up position again, facing his opponent.

“Rock-yillds have more power to their attacks”, the gang-leader observed, coming up. “They have more strength to them.” He started a veritable hail of strikes with his fists and the edges of his hands, further enhanced by occasional vicious kicks of his feet. 

The merchanter youth had his hands full with avoiding and blocking those hits, some of which got through far enough to land at least in a glancing way. But he moved too swiftly and was too wily to be caught fully by his adversary’s attacks.

“Sand-yillds are smaller, and have less strength, granted”, he gasped and ducked out of the way again. “But they are swifter than a yilld of the rocks!”

Out of the blue Cunor suddenly threw a somersault backward which took him out of the older boy’s range, and threw another one after a short in-run that took him just above Rhonn’s head to his back and let him attack from there.  
The young Makarsan could not turn round in time to fully block and avoid the volley of hits Cunor went at him with immediately, and had to jump back several times, barely holding his own.

“And they are more flexible “, the young mehandor added, landing an awful kick at Rhonn’s shin.

“Oww!” The gang-leader saved himself with a swift turn out of the way, grimacing, and suddenly grabbed for his opponent, managing to catch an arm and twisted, strongly.

“Ah!” Cunor Lant’cer had to follow the movement to avoid being hurt badly and got into the range of Rhonn’s fist.  
Instead of the nose, the hit landed on his cheek, which began to bruise immediately. With a gasp, the younger boy managed to wrench free and retaliated with a strike to the young chief’s stomach that made Rhonn double over with a gasp of his own, while the young merchanter stumbled backward as swiftly as he could to get out of the taller boy’s range.

“Merchanter-mate-your point-is taken”, the gang-leader wheezed and took up a position of defense, fists at the ready to strike in front of his chest. But Cunor stood like him, ducked slightly to be able to react to any attack, and took his time to get back his breath. The bruise on his cheek was swelling swiftly, purpling stronger by the khela, and would add an interesting feature to his face, the next prago-if it was not treated. Neither did Rhonn feel like attacking again immediately. Leg and middle still hurt surprisingly sharply. This time the young mehandor had not pulled his hits so carefully and had landed blows that had truly hurt.

“Call it a game done, boys”, another voice cut in, making the two fighters turn a little jerkily, their concentration upon each other broken for a moment.

“If you go on you’ll hurt each other for good, and what for, I ask? Any points you’ll have wanted to prove to each other have been made, I think. Go hit Tscheketh’s men with all the force you can muster. You do not need to waste that striking power on the two of you.”

Real misgiving sounded in the girl’s voice. Karena stood hands upon hips and did not look too forgiving, either.  
Warily eyeing each other the two youths slowly let down their guard and gave up their readiness to strike.

“Te, sav”, Cunor sighed, and slowly straightened, letting his hands fall to his sides. “Te, mam.”

The young woman smiled. “Sounds like you’ll take my advice, good for you, mehan’lad”, she said and turned to her chief with a frown.

“Rhonn?!”

The gang-leader slowly relaxed too, straightened and exhaled deeply.

“Right-o.” He inclined his head ceremoniously to his opponent and extended a hand. 

“Well-done, Cunor. You did better this time. Don’t pull your hits at all with Tscheketh, and we’ll have a true asset with you in our ranks.”

The two youths grabbed each other’s wrist and held on fast, squeezing a little in confirmation, before they let go, frankly looking into each other’s eyes, golden sparks dancing within the red orbs. 

“I’ll promise.” The young mehandor gave one of his so elegant bows, answered by another one of Rhonn’s, done much more clumsily.

“Accepted.” A slow grin spread about the gang-leader’s features as he let his glance go up and down his new friend’s body. “You’ve done well indeed, merchanter mate. I did not think that you could hold your own that strongly against me. Morenth will approve when he hears.”

Cunor grimaced. “Does he have to hear?” he asked, realizing that the wenadoran’s adult protector and Sponsor, its zarak-athor, would naturally be interested in anything new going on in his territory. 

“Yes.” Rhonn’s voice held a final tone to it. “You said that we were like a new crew to you you’d berth with and you’d stand up with. Think of me as your room’s chief then, but the captain up on the bridge is Morenth, and we’ll have to do his bidding if we want him to protect us and the whole ship.”

“The captain on the bridge I knew was my father”, Cunor sighed, rubbing his cheek. “But aye, I get it. He was my commander too, and would not have countenanced any argument from me either. He sent me on mission as well, and Ereinnye would have come to gulp me down in a Sarton if I had disobeyed any of his orders. I knew that he knew better than me, of course. Does Morenth?”

“Aye. He does.” Rhonn looked at the young mehandor with interest. “Your father-I know you told us before. Did he send you on missions? As a hacker? An elt’pamthole?”

“Yes. He had me train how to open doors and get through hostile territory unnoticed also if anyone might.”

That was the best way to describe Running a Room, in that context. He had to present himself to this Morenth as a useful person, Atlan thought, if he had to obey the man and could not deny his influence. As a capable hacker, an eltyan of the pamthol, of a comp, he would be useful enough and would be accepted-and perhaps this Morenth would, knowingly or not, open an access to him to get through to Government’s radio contacts, wherefrom he might send a message past the murderers’ noses to Trantagossa and to Mascant Sakal. If he managed that, he was off the hook, and could simply wait for to be rescued within the shortest order.

The young gang-leader pursed his lips and inclined his head.  
“That sounds more challenging than just stealthily hacking a pametharkol, a positronicon, to get data in relative safety”, he murmured. “Seems you faced more true action that I put past you, before, mehan’ mate.”

Cunor grimaced. He went with his fingers through his hair and threw it back with a swift twist of his head. The short braid he wore went flying.

“You were right, though, about my inexperience in true combat, Rhonn”, he sighed. “I was good, and never got caught. So my knowledge about fighting kept to being theoretical, and the fights I fought were but training bouts.”

Which was perfectly true, actually. Neither Tu-ra-cel nor the Golamo had caught him at his spying, which could be counted a true feat, even if it had been accomplished with the collaboration of a high-ranking Golamo officer, Kelta sel’Kamér, his personal bodyguard.

“Fine enough.” Rhonn showed a true grin. “If that was bought by expertise else, and you were so good no-one caught you at it, that’s good enough by me. For an eltyan-and, if that one’s a true eltyan, he need not be a yilld.”

The two youths grinned at each other widely and went up the stairs in obvious accordance with each other, the one limping, the other massaging his shoulder. Cunor’s bruise would purple half his face by tomorrow morning.  
Karena raised her eyes heavenward, imploring the Gods, and went after to offer tea to the two battered heroes, who would need her treatment for good. That they would rather be proud than ashamed or sorry for their behaviour and the resulting injuries was apparent. Gods, men!

Cunor da Gonozal took a deep breath as he saw her. He could not keep his heart from speeding up or his eyes from lighting up if he had wanted to, which he did not. Gods, Thyri always was beautiful in whatever attire-now she was ravishingly so, a sight to turn any man’s mind and heart-but she was there solely for him, and for a moment he was almost overwhelmed with a wave of gratefulness filling his heart for this gift Qinshora, the goddess of love, had given to him. 

“Gods, Thyri”, he breathed, stepping into his private rooms and letting the door slide to. She wore her hair almost open, only caught by a Bmerasath clasp at the neck. On the left side of her face a strand of her gleaming white hair fell playfully to the shoulder in ringlets, very obviously hinting at what she had come for to do: to give him joy and ease his heart and soul from the burden he carried.  
And, of course, more than just his heart and soul. Though, to be precise, easing would come after it’s opposite in that case. Thyri on Fhalmakir was no courtesan and so did not wear her ankles painted, but she had put on ankle rings of iridescent opals, softly gleaming blue and green. The allusion was not lost to the admiring glance of the Imperator. Yasha an gosalénn, Yasha the beautiful, wore an intricate kind of implant at her ankles rather than painted symbols, and those were of opal of the same kind, the while Khespan an Mathol, Khespan the Sweet One, was said to bear implants alike to Yasha’s at his hips, which must be a truly ravishing sight to any customer of his.

In addition, Thyri had chosen a robe that revealed her perfect body in a manner no less enthralling. Her elegant long legs were accentuated by the strings of white sandals, with the robe of light rosé mahkan silk but covering her knees, keeping to Eldrith style just decent, trailing down at her back to reach the floor. The wide décolleté covered her just as decently, leaving a clear hint of her swelling breasts and showing off the tip of her neck where a single drop of gleaming opal shimmered with every breath she took. The long trailing sleeves were wide and short in front, letting one see her exquisite wrists where she wore the bracelets inlaid with blue mivelum and white kyasoo, underlining the beauty of her hands where she wore but one glittering band of a ring.

But all of that a man could overlook when he literally fell into the look of her eyes, wide, shimmering, glowing a deep red with emotion, open to his every thought and gaze.

“Gods, Thyri”, Cunor da Gonozal breathed once more and simply took her into his arms, his lips melting to hers in a long deep kiss. He had not expected to see or even hear her tonight, as she was normally ensconced at their cozy resort at the seaside or in her rooms at the Gonozal Khasurn in the highlands of Kogruk. Neither had she ever come to the Gos Khasurn of her own volition instead of explicitly being invited by her beloved. 

She must know his thoughts, for she answered his questioning look after they had gotten their breath back to them.

“It was your lady mother, my Imperator, who invited me-actually she quite openly requested my presence here tonight. I believe that she guessed that you would have need of me right now.” Cunor’s Mayth’ Dol Fam smiled at him and saw him take a deep breath, a momentarily painful smile twisting his own lips before he smiled openly again, holding her close and inclining his head.

“Oh, Gods. Thyri-yes, I seldom or never have had need of you in every sense as I have it tonight. Mother was right. She knew how the words she would speak to me would affect me. Like a good yoner-madrul-offer the knife and bitter medicine, but keep the remedy as ready to hand. “

He kissed her again, feeling how much he needed her right now the keener. They would talk, later on, and she would be the best friend he could unburden his heart and soul to. But right now he wanted to drown all his pain and anger and frustration in the wave of joy and desire he already felt rising within him. The robe came off very cunningly with a simple clasp at the navel opened, falling down to reveal her wearing but an almost transparent shift. Sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her over to the bed, all the while gazing deeply into her glowing red eyes and feeling how his heart opened, he knew that Thyri on Fhalmakir truly was what he desperately needed right now.

“None of it makes sense, not truly. The conclusion Mekron kel’Dermitron came to, that the one originally having committed this outrage must be a complete madman, actually is the only one plausible, though still a pretty illogical one. Though it is the only explanation we could find, so far.”

Cunor da Gonozal, in his long white robe of mahkan silk, was pacing to and fro in front of the table and settee where his beloved lady reclined, listening attentively, a glass of Nettoruna wine in her hand.

“Another undeniable fact is that that one has had help, a number of fanatics or ignorant rebels doing his or her bidding. But they were a group competent enough, men able to board the TONDON according to a well-laid and executed plan, and they had further help with all the preparations, like the theft and hacking of the TONDON’s flight plans or the manipulations necessary that must have been done previously in the dock.  
All of that was accomplished so professionally and tracelessly that we, and the Services, never noticed a thing before the attack. This means that there is a whole efficient terror organization at work, people who have no idea what they are doing in truth under the command of a person who must realize that because he or she must be resident upon the Thek Laktran or be working there permanently in a very high position. There must be some among them in different positions where they had access to different parts of that plan executed, who must have been forced or influenced, perhaps drugged or manipulated by other means in ways that made it impossible for them to refuse or come forward in time. The helpers in question cannot have known what they were involved with in truth, or the enormity of the intended crime should have outweighed whatever other consideration of theirs by far, and they should have betrayed those plans. It makes no sense. It gods-damned-to-Ereinnye does not make any sense!”

Thyri on Fhalmakir looked at her beloved mate with deep concern.

“Why, my Imperator?” she asked softly. “If our enemy has planned for to do as much harm as possible-hasn’t he been successful very well?”

“Gods, yes.” The Arkonath Tai Moas let himself fall into the armchair and took a gulp of his own glass.

“As far as Ragnaari standing With Cup Ready, and my brother Crest preparing himself to issue a challenge to a mannax duel.”

She held her breath in shock. Their glances met and held on to each other.  
“Apart from Mother telling me of her opinion-and no matter whether I agree or not, she certainly has more than one point-I get a lot of other information suited for disturbing me deeply. The Orcast thrai and her shalluc mate are going for my brother Upoc’s and his Companion’s throat, which can be but a move ultimately aiming at the two of us. Ramoros and Mathamnara are as determined as ever to get their Althrita wedded to me, and seem not to plan to stop anywhere.”

Thyri on Fhalmakir did not allow herself a stronger reaction than a short twist of her lips. Her lover smiled bitterly and took another sip of wine, saluting her.

“Old news to us, that is, isn’t it? But combined with the newest events the matter becomes more sinister by far.  
What if those two are involved in truth, and what if that comes out? The Eldrith are divided as it is right now. With such a rift-and with Orcast involved in any way that cannot be avoided-we are at the brink of internal strife up to the scale of war. I cannot conceive of Orcast having dirtied his hands with these inconceivable atrocities. Not even that disgusting shalluc can sink so low. But what if they are involved and have allowed others to get their hands or claws where they could not have gotten them otherwise-with Orcast being duped and blinded by their desires, playing the Tashma puppets others direct from the Bench?”

Thyri had gone pale and shivered softly as she put down her glass and leaned forward, laying her hand upon the Imperator’s shoulder.

“For that to be possible the one directing from the Bench must be in a better position even than Orcast at the Gos Khasurn and at Court to overlook the board he is moving his pieces upon. There are not many who have such a position and have such power and knowledge. But how could such a person have any interest in harming Atlan, and his family, you and all of the Tai Ark’ Tussan? Of course, our Gos athor is in the way of any grandson’s of Ramoros’ after he has married Althrita to you successfully. But it does not make sense for the Orcast Laktrote to go at Atlan at all before there even has been a contract signed and sworn to! In old Ramoros’ eyes, I am in his daughter’s way far sooner than our Gos athor could be in the way of a grandson of his! If an attack at the TONDON could be carried through so successfully, why have not I been attacked before that, an accident happening to me, an assassination attempt, a scandal staged, I-“

“Thyri, please!” Cunor da Gonozal’s eyes were full of anguish. She stopped, seeing how disturbed and almost frightened he was.

“If Orcast is involved, they cannot have done this knowingly or voluntarily. Not to this extent, I agree, my Imperator.”

Thyri on Fhalmakir had achieved the Ark’Summia and had an extra brain as capable and effective as any other hertaso’s.

“And no matter how unknowingly, if they are involved, the Thuyyhehhor Mhorymer is looming to swallow all of us and Arkon with us with the internal strife that will erupt. Gods, this is a catastrophe on a scale even grander than just-just! my nephew’s abduction and the murder of my Tai Kha’Laktrote! And it all makes no sense-because only an Arkonath person of very high rank at the Thek Laktran can be the mastermind and leader of this terrorist bunch, the while the only ones profiting at all from the situation are the Maahks, in the last consequence! No matter whether ignorant fanatics, mindless murderers and rebels, or desperate separatists are the ones to carry out that one’s orders-they all are part of the Tai Ark’Tussan, they all are in graver danger than ever from our arch-enemies if true harm comes to our Gos athor! And we know that the attackers at the TONDON were Arkonath!”

“I do not see any better sense in the matter than do you, my Imperator.” Thyri turned the glass in her hand, looking down at the wine swirling, and looked up again, meeting her beloved man’s eyes.

“But no matter else-the Yilld attacks where there is prey, doesn’t it? So-if the ones to benefit ultimately are the Maahks, isn’t it possible that they are involved somehow, and that they are behind this? And if they are-how could they be?”

Cunor da Gonozal, Tai Moas Gonozal homénn da Arkon, inclined his head with a grimace.  
“I agree, Thyri. Of that, I have thought also, and all of us investigating must have thought of that. But-how could they be? I see no way, and the matter does not make sense either. The one acting was an Arkonath. No Maahk could have orchestrated such a psychologically well-set play, and we know from many details that it was Arkonath malice directed at me and my family. I simply see no way how the Maahks could have come to such influence. Indeed. Even if they are the only ones profiting in the long run, how could they be the ones behind this?”


End file.
